Hi, you are gonna get tons of different answers to this because everyone is different and even with the same person flares are not always the same. But because you asked I will describe a typical flare for me. First comes a sore throat, this happens almost 75% of the time or more, then the morning stiffness increase for a day or so, body starts to ache and then *bam* right in the middle of a flare. They last from 3 days to 2 weeks and vary in severity, the worst left me unable to walk up or down any kind of stairs or incline and I had to get fluid drained from my knee and cortisone injected in it but that was the worst and the longest and I have had symptoms for a little over a year. When I am not in what I consider to be a "active" flare my hand/finger joints still bother me, they never go away but I am learning to cope with their chronic pain. I consider an "active" flare when it is more then my fingers/hands and I often have body aches and tiredness to go with it, like the flu.
But just when you get use to what you will consider a typical flare for you something will really set you off, for me it was stopping that darn predisone, I was fine one day and woke up the next with my kneee so swollen I could barely walk on it and I felt not only like a Mac truck had run over me but then it backed up and did it again.
So it is hard to say but I am sure you will get alot of varying and interesting answers to this question, this is one disease that is completly different in each person and completly different from moment to moment! take care and welcome to DS!
Crys

Hi, you are gonna get tons of different answers to this because everyone is different and even with the same person flares are not always the same. But because you asked I will describe a typical flare for me. First comes a sore throat, this happens almost 75% of the time or more, then the morning stiffness increase for a day or so, body starts to ache and then *bam* right in the middle of a flare. They last from 3 days to 2 weeks and vary in severity, the worst left me unable to walk up or down any kind of stairs or incline and I had to get fluid drained from my knee and cortisone injected in it but that was the worst and the longest and I have had symptoms for a little over a year. When I am not in what I consider to be a "active" flare my hand/finger joints still bother me, they never go away but I am learning to cope with their chronic pain. I consider an "active" flare when it is more then my fingers/hands and I often have body aches and tiredness to go with it, like the flu.
But just when you get use to what you will consider a typical flare for you something will really set you off, for me it was stopping that darn predisone, I was fine one day and woke up the next with my kneee so swollen I could barely walk on it and I felt not only like a Mac truck had run over me but then it backed up and did it again.
So it is hard to say but I am sure you will get alot of varying and interesting answers to this question, this is one disease that is completly different in each person and completly different from moment to moment! take care and welcome to DS!
Crys

My first and only flare so far was BIG. I woke up one morning (my birthday) with seventeen joints that were painful and/or impossible to move. This included not only my hands, wrists and shoulders, but also my jaw and my throat. I also had a fever and generally felt very sick.

Once I started treatment with Prednisone and Methotraxate, my symptoms became very mild in comparison. Still, I don't consider myself in remission because for this I would have to meet the medical criteria of no indication of inflammation in my blood and no other sign of disease activity ( no pain, no fever, no swelling, no water retention). I know that I am not yet there.

My current condition is so much better than where I started, though, that I consider myself in a sort of "subjective remission" (my own definition of remission). In this type of remission, I can do practically anything that I want to do and I can be almost the woman that I used to be before RA started. For me, this is a reason for celebration even if I don't meet the medical criteria for remission.

I hope for you that you will be in remission soon too. All the best. Me

Flares vary at different times. Before I was diagnosed with RA going on my 12th year, I woke up in the middle of night and coudn't move my right arm or shoulder. I woke up my husband thinking I was having a stroke and he took me to the ER room. There they could find no reason for my excruiating pain and sent me home with muscle relaxants and asked me to follow up with an orthopedic doctor. I did he found no cause. Luckily I had a very astute doctor who knew I didn't complain and was not a hypochondriac. He sent me for blood tests to see if the RA factor was there...well it was. He referred me to a rhuematologist. What did this awful flare feel like. Well best way to describe it is to say I felt like I was hit by a bus. I couldn't dres myself, get up or down the stairs without assistance, it was pure hell. The only good thing I can say about a flare at least for me is, that it bounces from body part to body part every 24-36 hours. I never used to have symmetrical pain. My right shoulder would hurt, then it would get better and my left shoulder hurt. My mode of treatment eventually put in by doctor standards a remission. She warned me the RA could come back anytime and the drugs I was taking may stop working as well. I am very fortunate to have a wonderful RD. She is young and up on the latest science has to offer. Because of her youth, I think she respects me and what I have to say. We carry on dialouge with one another and based on discussion we come up with a mode of treatment. Crystal was correct, noone can tell you what a flare really is or how bad it may be. After all we have different pain thresholds as a starter. I guess one universal symptom of a flare is that you feel like crap, are in a lot of pain, have swollen and red joints and a low grade fever. I for one have never gotten the sore throat Crystal mentioned. But that may be because I am on an antibotic treatment for the RA. I am sorry this is long winded, but describing a mother of a flare is difficult. In one sentence when I have to resort to taking prednisone I know I am in a major flare!

Another description of how a major flare feels to me is: the joint involved feels like it has jagged glass in it. Evertine I move it feel like the glass moves and jabs at my skin. Sometimes I have described my pain as someone hitting the joint over and over with a hammer!Keep in mind prednisone is the quickest medicine to help you through a flare. I have it in 1,5,10 and 20 mg sizes in my medicine cabinet.

Disneyfan:

I agree with the other posts. For me, a flare is when I just plain hurt. My wrists are extremely painful; I can't make a fist and usually my ankles and feet hurt. Sometimes, my shoulders are painful too. My hands swell and hurt.

Remission - I agree with D. I had a couple months where I was completely objectively symptom free. It didn't last, but I treasured those two months.

Lynne

Burning. I ache and when I move specific joints they feel like they are on fire.

I'm currently in what I call a "semi-flare".
I can work, but I'm exhausted at the end of the day and my knees, ankles, and wrists hurt all of the time. I cannot climb stairs and I just want it to go away!

Just started Arava and hope for good results. Side effects are bothering me so far.

My flares also start wirh a mild sore throat and general body aches. They very quickly progress to extreme fatigue and joint pain, swelling and stiffness in my wrists, fingers, andkles and feet. They can last one day or an entire week. I am still playing around with medications and had some serious side efects from MTX and Humira. I now take prednisone and Kineret (daily injection).

Karyn

Not a dumb question.
Mine was during the night. I felt like I had a mild fever when I went to bed, and a sore throat.
When I woke up, I could not turn my head (stiffness and pain in the back of my neck), this huge knot in my right throat (could not swallow), and then a check off list of stiffness and pain in joints from shoulders on down including wrists, fingers, knees, feet, toes. I had to slowly roll out of bed. I limped to walk. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Since then, mine have come in different places and spreads the wealth around. For a while a shoulder will be inflamed, along with some fingers, then it will move to another finger. Sometimes it's in one foot, sometimes both.

I would add fatigue to the flare symptoms. A lot of time I only think of the joint pain, but I also get so stinking tired.

I do not know what remission is yet. I have relief, using drugs, but I would not say I was in remission.

B

This was NOT a dumb question! This is the one place that I have found to feel safe to ask just about anything.

I was fine one day and woke up the next with what I thought was the flu. I doctored for 6 days, not getting any better. Went to the dr. and long story short had RA. My original flare consisted of severe pain in my feet (to the point I couldn't walk), pain in my hands, my fingers swelled up like sausages, pain in my jaw (couldn't eat or talk) and just a horrible feeling of fatigue like I had the flu. That lasted on and off for about 6 months. I have been on Humira now for almost a year. I am not sure if I can say I have had anything like the original on set flare. I have had times where my hands got bad or my feet, but nothing, oh God, nothing like the original flare.

I wouldn't say that I am in remission, but I will say that the drugs are managing the symtoms. I still have rough days (mostly related to the weather), but I can't say that I have had a "flare".

To try and answer your question, I would have to say imagine your worst days, the pain the difficulty in functioning and use that as a type of compass. Compare how you are feeling today to that. If you are feeling better and can function, then hey, chalk one up for the team! If your symtoms are close to your worst and you are having a difficult time coping, then I would have to say that is a flare.

Hope this helped. And thanks! You gave me a perspective to gauge my disease that I hadn't thought of before. So thanks for your help! Hugs!

Wow, i'm right there with you! My first "flare" occured right before i was leaving for a much needed Cruise to Mexico with my son, just the two of us (he is 7!)...It started as a "low grade fever", neck and back ache and just "blah" feeling...thought tylenol/motrin would cure this "bug" in a couple of days as we boarded the boat...but alas, my worst nightmare occured...i steadily got worse and worse and by the 2nd day on boat, i had to buy a cane to walk, my most memoriable suvineer of the trip :(...i hurt sooo bad, my knees, ankles, wrists, fingers, thumbs, sholders, EVERYTHING! I couldn't sleep, couldn't lye down for longer then a few minutes because my sholders/elbows/hands would hurt even tough i finally was getting "some" relief for my knees being elevated, i ended up alternating between the couch being proped by pillows and flotation devices to my bed proped up against the wall, each and every night for 5 miserable nights...i still wanted my son to have a "fun" cruise so i tortured myself hobbling as best i could (futil attempts) causing me to be in my most severe pain by evening time...i went through a whole bottle of tylenol and motrin over those 5 days and still pain was 8-10...i thought this couldn't get worse, then it did! I called my hubby to bring my vicoden to the airport when he picked us up and told him we may end up in the ER if it didn't work...we flew in on a sunday night, he really wanted me to wait till the morning and see the dr. then, i figured the vicoden would tide me over till then, i was wrong...i "slept" in our lazy boy chair as i now was unable to roll at all by myself, sit up in bed or get out of a chair...i had to have my hubby dress me, shower me, everything...i felt like the most total care of patients i've cared for myself as a RN...i saw my career slipping away from me...it was the scarriest thing i've ever experienced! I was envious of the old people who "sauntered along" with their canes with no problems as i'm barely moving at all with mine! I wanted a wheelchair but knew i couldn't push it myself or have my son do it...it was sooo depressing...finally my dr. stared me on 60mg of prenisone and a day and half later, i was finally getting some relief! I'm scared though now, i'm coming down from the tapper down to 30mg/day and worried what will happen with the prednisone is gone, i don't want to go back there! I feel very "gun shy" of this whole RA thing now, like living through a nightmare and afraid for it to return at any moment...we are a one income family and this whole incident made us have to think about things we never inteded on ever thinking about...what would happen if i can't work? We wouldn't make it! This is all very new to me, i hope this is a "one time" event never to return, but know better...i am hoping to get a referal to a Rhuemy soon...preferably before i go off this prednisone! I look forward to hearing others and their experiences on here, it is nice to know your not alone in this battle! :)

Please never think a question you post here is dumb. Everyone here has been in your shoes and when each of us first got RA, you can bet we all had tons of questions - and we still ask questions.

I have never been in a full remission. Have pain in and around joints everyday - with different ones being affected, never knowing which are going to bother me the next day. Never know if I'm going to have any energy to do anything. I was worse a year ago in the summer and figured I was in a 'real' flare - lasted about 3 months till finally I got to where I am now, daily pain under some control with meds. I also have Fibromyalgia so that is figured in with me too and certainly compounds the issue for me.

I guess you will just have to see over what happens with time. It might help to keep a daily journal about your symptoms and experiences. With that you might look back and see when you had differences and then can figure out what a flare is for you and what a remission might be for you. Keep us posted on how you do. --Carol

Jennifer - what a scary time you had, feeling so horrible and being away from home to boot. Heck - I'm afraid of being more than an hour away from home, in case I start feeling awful. I just can't imagine what you went thru.

You talked about see elderly people getting along with a cane and here you were, so much worse off. That is one thing about having RA (and Fibro) that bothers me, seeing people older than me getting around so much better. Yes, I'm 64, but in my mind I shouldn't be needing a cane. Look at all those elderly people out there - those in their 80's, 20 years older than me, who are still getting around so good - and here's me with a cane and nothing 'visibly' wrong with me. Makes me feel kind of rediculous, but then I think they are probably thanking their lucky stars they didn't get hit with RA and Fibro. Having this disease doesn't just affect us physically, it can make us feel bummed out for many reasons, including wishing we could get around like those who are older. That might be a silly little thing to some but it's something I still have to deal with in my head sometimes. When I do get like that I try to remember that there are those of you out there that are so much worse off than me and try not to feel sorry for myself. Sigh.

Hey - let us know what your Rheumy does for you.... and good luck! --Carol

My definition of remission is not being on any kind of meds and feeling like you did before RA. I still have a long way to go, but will make it someday.(positive thinking)
bigi