Invisible illness causing untold pain to sufferers

ARTHRITIS is a very serious condition that affects 10 million people in the UK. Yet despite it being the country’s leading source of pain and disability it remains a largely invisible and overlooked condition that is often dismissed as “an old person’s disease”, even though the truth is that it can attack people of all ages.

This is why Arthritis Research UK is launching a campaign to highlight the condition and its awful debilitating effects. Apart from the physical toll, it costs the economy £2.58billion a year.

There are always medical conditions that attract the public’s attention and their sympathy. Arthritis is not one of these: it is almost a Cinderella illness. And most who suffer from it tend to do so in silence. Often they do not wish to be a nuisance to their families, let alone the medical profession.

Yet nobody would wish chronic pain on anybody. It can make life unbearable and many with arthritis are in pain all the time.

Many people with agonising conditions of all types will be stoical and “put up and shut up”. But with a disease such as arthritis and related illnesses such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, the very fact that it is so widespread makes it essential that the campaign not only raises awareness but also leads to more research and eventually a cure.