This year I had a co-worker say, who btw has an autistic daughter....anyway she assumed I wouldn't want to have kids in the future with "my condition".

I'm not sure where people think they have opinions without the information to begin with.

It's also the same thing as my husband in the very beginning thought he knew everything there was about RA after he read one website.

SK

Oh dear. How upsetting for your son. We explained to our kids as much as we could about RA and also got some material for them to read. I think that helped alot because they were afraid I would die as well. I guess people don't really know about RA. I knew absolutely nothing about it until I got it myself.

The answer to your question "why do they say such dumb things" is because they are DUMB!!!! No one (or maybe someone would) think to tell a young person their parent would die from cancer, or any of a a number of other diseases. My son had a friend in junior high whose mother had RA and had a lot of problems with it. I got to know her fairly well and she told me her mother told her that she should sell her house and bring her husband and kids to come live with the mother so when she ended up in a wheelchair she wouldn't have to move. Yikes!!! Some people are just ignorant. Don't let them get to you and I hope you were able to explain a bit more about RA to him.

I do think it is wrong to tell a kid such things but to not talk about the mortality risks is also not right if he is old enough to know. Our drugs makes life more managable but from what I have read we are not living longer.

I think what bugs me more than someone knowing the risk we have, is those that say "I have RA to in my little toe". And you know they don't have a clue what RA is.

WTF?????????
IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

people just have no brains. if you don't know what you are talking about, keep you fat mouth shut! i'm not gonna die from my ra, but i might choke to death on the handful of pills i have to take every day! people are just silly, and to scare anyone, at any age, with garbage like that just shows their ignorance. hope you son recovers quickly from the scare!
brat

I don't nessiceraly tell my girls that I will die of RA. But I have told them that people with RA do have a shorter lifespan than the rest of the population. I have talked to them about about my heart attack risk being double as a result of having RA. We talked that RA does not just attack the joints. We have talked about lung infections, drug side effects, my liver, ect. If for some reason something happens and they come home and find me they will know some of the things that could be wrong. I remeber finding my grandmother on the floor after she took asprin that caused a stomach bleed. She lost 6 pints of blood. With all the pills I take that could be me.

One of the google books that has good info on RA is (sorry long link)http://books.google.com/books?id=Ezmb0OcLAVcC&pg=PT16&lpg=PT16&dq=life+expectancy+Rheumatoid+arthritis&source=bl&ots=ZnKQjmXuHH&sig=K74SNZU7qM4oa2t1HOTq9RxWALA&hl=en&ei=VDHJScr5FImGsQPq-YCKAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPT16,M1