Inflammatory arthritis action plan – managing your arthritis flare
Living with inflammatory arthritis can be unpredictable. Even with treatment, there may be times when your symptoms flare. Use this action plan to discuss and plan the best way to manage flares with your rheumatology team. This action plan is for people with inflammatory arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis or ankylosing spondylitis (also called axial spondyloarthritis).
About flares
Flares are times when your disease is more active, causing more inflammation. A flare can last from a few days to weeks.
Signs of a flare
- More severe joint pain, stiffness and/or swelling than usual
- Difficulty doing the things you need to do, including personal
care, work and family life - Feeling very tired and finding it hard to sleep at night
because of pain - Possibly a fever, body aches and/or feeling unwell
- Usual treatments aren’t keeping your symptoms under control
- Feeling frustrated, upset and withdrawing from people
Causes
Flares can happen at any time, with little or no warning and without an obvious cause. Sometimes flares can be triggered by:
- doing too much, getting run down or pushing yourself beyond your limits
- emotional stress
- infections or illnesses
- missing, skipping or taking the wrong dose of medicines
- changes to your treatment, including switching to a different medicine o reducing the dose of your medicine.
Medicines that can be used for flares include:
• non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), eg, ibuprofen, meloxicam
• pain relief medicines, eg, paracetamol
• glucocorticoid (also known as corticosteroid) tablets or injections, eg, prednisolone.
Further information
- Arthritis Australia arthritisaustralia.com.au
- Australian Rheumatology Association https://rheumatology.org.au/Fo...
- NPS MedicineWise nps.org.au
- Information about pain and medicines for pain relief nps.org.au/professionals/opioids-chronic-pain#resources
- Pain Management Network aci.health.nsw.gov.au/chronic-pain/chronic-pain
- painHEALTH painhealth.csse.uwa.edu.au/
Managing my flares
Share this action plan with your healthcare team to help you understand what you can do during a flare.
Click here to access a fillable version of the action plan.
Download the original pdf of this article
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