Making Big Changes

Some bit of wisdom began to emerge in me. I cannot say I was fully conscious of it, but at some level, I knew that a big change was needed for me to get better. There are lots of ways for a person to make a big change. In my life, in my family, big change had always come about from moving.


Relocation forces people to find new ways of living. It was clear to me that the ways I found living in the North had not been good for me and I was tired of fighting the long cold winters. All our children were out of the house. We were mortgage free and pretty much debt free. Though I had quite a few years to go, my husband was about to retire.

Up to that point, both of our lives had been focused on making a living, paying our bills, and raising children. Only once had we taken a vacation alone and that was early in our marriage. Instead, our energy went into giving the children all of the experiences and opportunities that we could afford, even using money that could have gone to retirement to do it.

We were not wealthy, but we had enough, we believed. Perhaps it was time for us to do something for ourselves. My husband and I applied for and were accepted into the Peace Corps.

This pending change gave me the motivation I needed – finally – to shed a few pounds. In fact, we both lost weight.

The excitement and anticipation of the adventure gave me back energy and enthusiasm. The effort required to prepare gave me plenty of opportunity to get active again. Before long, I was feeling better, sleeping better, and having fewer aches and pains.

The lifestyle change helped improve my arthritis even though I didn’t know I even had it.

Have you ever had a sense that something needed to change in your life? Were you able to make the change? Tell us about your experience. Did change help your OA? Was it too difficult?

OA Onset and Lifestyle Change

After I was diagnosed with OA, I learned that people predisposed to the disease should try to get regular exercise and maintain a good weight.

Most of my life, my weight has been good and I was active. Though I was never a gym-goer or a runner, I walked, hiked, and biked often when the weather was nice.  My regular exercise came from chores and childcare: lifting kids, making beds, cleaning floors, washing laundry, painting walls, hauling drywall and lumber, climbing into weird positions to get under a sink to fix a leak, climbing onto roofs. The rest came from my favorite hobby – gardening.

Gardening, at least the kind I do, involves lifting, turning, twisting, pulling, pushing everything - weeds, plants, mulch, stones, limbs, stumps. It’s better than a workout at the gym because it’s outdoors, under the sun, surrounded by all of the scents of nature.

Moving, staying active always felt good to me and I had lived most of my life in the South where winters are short.  A move North changed that.  I lacked winter sport skills.  There were no easily accessible athletic clubs, pools, or gyms where I could do indoor exercise, no malls to walk.  In addition, I started a new job, a great job, the job I always thought I wanted and one that required me to sit for many hours every day.  The impact on my body was slow but insidious.
My aches and pains increased.  Rest, the solutions to pain of overexertion, did not stop the ache but it did relieve some of the fatigue caused by pain.  What I did not consider is that both ache and fatigue might have improved if I had worked harder to get exercise.  Instead, I imagined that something else was wrong with me - female problems perhaps, menopause.  The thought that i might have arthritis never occured to me. 

I was a creature of habit.  My environment changed.  My habits didn't adapt to the change.  As a result, aches and pain became more common.  Fatigue was huge.  I did not sleep well at night.  My weight began to increase.  It was all depressing.  I knew something was wrong but could not yet see that it was my lifestyle.

What about you? Did you have a change in lifestyle that came before your OA began to cause problems? What kind of change was it?

How OA Starts - A Family Heritage

How does osteoarthritis begin? How did mine start? How about yours? How far back to we go to talk about our stories? This will be the topic of my next few posts.


Maybe I should start with what I learned recently about OA. It has a strong genetic link. That means that people in certain families tend to get OA more frequently that people in other families. It has to do with how our bodies work and that is determined, in part, by what we were given from our parents and grandparents.

People who are middle age or younger will likely know if their parents had osteoarthritis. These days, doctors know what it is and what name to give it. Many people who are older do not have this information. The generations who are now gone did not have this one name for their pain. OA had many different names back then. Had I known that OA ran in my family, I might have also learned early on the importance of maintaining a healthy weight, getting exercise, and monitoring my condition.

So, how about you, your loved one, or your patients. Do those you know with OA have a family history? Did their parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles have the same problem?

Let everyone know your answers by posting a comment below!