Rheumatoid arthritis: Marie was 24 with three kids when her wrist suddenly swelled

Marie Knight was only 24 when her wrist suddenly swelled and began throbbing with pain.

“I sort of let it go and then 12 months later it started to ache a little bit and my body and different joints,” Knight, 68, tells 9honey.

“And then I had swelling of the wrist again,” the Armidale local said.

At the time Knight was raising three young children and struggling to get through everyday tasks.

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“It was just so uncomfortable. It was very painful,” she explained.

Eventually the swelling and pain would impact her wrists, ankles and leg.

“I had young kids and I just wasn’t sure what it was. I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t think I’ve overdone it with sport or anything like that’,” she said.

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Knight was shocked when her doctor confirmed that she had Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) after a simple blood test.

“I hadn’t even heard of it,” she said.

“I thought arthritis… it’s always been an old person’s disease. But then when I went to the rheumatologist, the first rheumatologist I went to, they just explained it all.”

“The next 10 years wasn’t much fun,” Knight continued.

“It was a lot of pain and discomfort. A lot of ups and downs.”

At the time she tried medications but they did little to help alleviate her symptoms.

It was when she was in her thirties when she began seeing Professor Lyn March, a rheumatologist and Professor of Rheumatoid Arthritis leading research into the causes and treatments of RA.

That is when she found treatment that worked for her in the form of medication and lifestyle changes.

She found more gentle ways to exercise, focused on staying active and found a “good GP, the best physio and the best massager”.

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Professor March tells 9honey RA can strike in women post-pregnancy, post-natal or during other hormonal changes such as perimenopause and menopause.

“It does happen in men as well, boys and men, but it’s far more common in women,” she explained.

“It’s an autoimmune inflammatory type of arthritis. So it can cause a lot more damage and destruction in the joints if it’s not diagnosed early and treated early.”

Knight continues to adjust her lifestyle to manage her condition.

“I’ve given up sport and stuff like that because of it. I was sort of there for the kids. I needed help sometimes with the kids and stuff like that. You just work around things and just do the best you can back then. And now I just adjust my life to what I can do now,” she said.

“I have line dancing and going back to lawn bowls.”

Knight said she’s learnt that you need to work around things and fix your lifestyle in a way that can help you keep active.

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“You’ve got to do it because your body just changes so much,” she said.

“You’ve got to do different exercises, depending on what joint aching or pain falls, things like that.”

For those newly diagnosed with RA, Knight’s advice is to “stay positive and just keep moving and keep active as much as you can and get a good physiotherapist and rheumatologist”.

Professor March’s latest project is a registry called A3BC, national biobanking and information network which aims to improve the health of men, women and children living with arthritis and autoimmune conditions.

The network includes more than 70 rheumatology clinicians and researchers, and over 60 recruitment sites, biobanks and research laboratories.

“There are patients that are contributing to the registry for all types of inflammatory arthritis, but a big focus on rheumatoid arthritis,” she explains.

Patients are contributing by giving blood and other microbiome samples. The aim of the project is to increase the effectiveness of treatments by identifying which will work best for each patient.

As it stands, patients often need to try multiple treatments before they find the one that works best for them.

“You’ve got to do it because your body just changes so much.”

“They can have side effects, especially in the women’s system, you’re more prone to infections and things like that,” she says.

“And so it’s quite important part of our research is to identify what we predict. If we’ve got all these markers, we’ve got the blood cells, we’ve got the inflammatory markers in that person’s blood or we know what’s happening in the bacteria in their gut, can we identify early on that they will or won’t respond to these new drugs.”

This Friday the Ulysses Motorcycle Club will embark on the Ulysses Club ‘Ride for Rheumatoid’ fundraising event through their UCARF foundation.

The Ulysses Bikers have been incredible supporters of arthritis research since 1997 through their UCARF foundation. They’ve rallied after tough years and committed to funding a new PhD scholarship in RA research at the Sutton Lab.

Many members of the club have lived experience with the condition and are looking forward to focusing their efforts on the cause.

The group will make their way from Monash University in Melbourne to Armidale, stopping by Kolling as part of their ride and supporting Suttom Lab as well as raising awareness of RA.

For a $20 donation riders can join along the way. The group are aiming to raise $5,000 during their journey. Find out more about the fundraiser here.

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