Morning - I feel I need to drop in on this. Apologies for the essay, but it's important to me.
With inflammatory arthritis, you can have periods of remission and relapse
It is also possible, particularly if you have periods of remission, to exercise, weight train and do a lot that means whilst you feel absolutely dreadful, you still have a lot of muscle mass and residual strength; you also get very good on posture. Interestingly, a lot of people experience remission shortly after commencing an entirely vegan/plantbased diet, but this doesn't tend to last because if you aren't absolutely 100% wanting to protect/save/whatever animals, it's still bastarding hard to do, it can be very triggering for disordered eating and like it or not, it's very, very difficult to keep vitamin and mineral levels up so you can end up with all sorts of deficiencies, including Vitamin D deficiency, which can mean you end up with something like osteomalacia, low mood and insomnia.
Consistent steroid use, whether oral (yuk), intra-articular injections (yuk, yuk, yuk, yuk) or through intramuscular injections (meh) that Rheumatologists can give you can be like magic energy meds as, within a short time, you feel bleeping invincible, but they have hidden costs - they also duck up your bone density in the long term and, in the short term can trigger hyper behaviour even without ADHD or bipolar as well as the natural human response of 'I can DO STUFF! Let's GO!' where you rush around doing eleven million things at once, eat all the food and become generally insufferable before they wear off or you inevitably damage yourself and crash again. If you add in a likely element of hypermobility (as per dancing), you have unstable joints, additional pain, clumsiness and more bastarding pain even when the joints themselves aren't inflamed.
Of all the stuff Jack gets the side eye from me about, I completely believe the RA. And it is very common for women to be told they have bipolar/depression/it's all in their head when they describe such symptoms as pain, tiredness, insomnia and lack of grip strength, so they acquire a mental health diagnosis or two long before anybody stops and actually books a few blood tests - being persuaded to take some antidepressants when you don't need them, you need something designed to damp down inflammation, is roughly the same as necking a handful of Ecstasy, just without the cool music - everything is too bright, too loud, too disorienting, and you go essentially batshit from lack of sleep and being pilled off your tits. Whilst your hands/feet/back/hip/knee/whatever still all hurt like duck.
And, of course, when you go back to the GP and tell them this, they first of all double/triple/quadruple your dose for 6-12 months before referring you on to a Psychiatrist, who never, ever thinks of anything other than mental health and how to medicate that. Bingo, bipolar diagnosis. Have some antipsychotics on top of Depakote. Don't read the side effects leaflet where it says that this can increase inflammatory processes in your body, whatever you do. And don't pay any heed to the leaflet on Tramadol where it says that can have exactly the same effect upon you as another handful of bad Es. Because you aren't depressed or bipolar, you have inflammatory arthritis that isn't being treated appropriately whilst they wank about with all this psychoactive tit to confirm their prejudices about women all being hysterical/mental.
If then, because you are naturally very suspicious of any medications, get to see a Rheumatologist who recommends some other medications that have serious side effects like sight loss, liver failure (so you mustn't drink), fatal infections or in the long term, cancer, you might be reluctant to take them. After all, everything else you've been told will work has hurt you. So you decline in favour of pain medication. BIG mistake. You're now chemically dependent on those and they aren't actually all that good at handling the sort of pain you have. Plus the Rheumatology Department discharges you as any GP can prescribe those. You're back to square one, only with mental health diagnoses, a note on your records that you could be exhibiting drug seeking behaviour and no access to say 'actually, I'd like to reconsider those DMARDs now' within under 9 - 12 months (new referral, waiting time, first appointment, return in 3 (knocked back to 5) months with test results, need to repeat tests because they're over 3 months ago, return in 3/5, try this drug and come back in 3, etc, etc.
Even with a pretty much lifelong history of having had inflammatory arthritis, I still encounter medical personnel who don't believe me. Woe betide anybody who says 'So, what makes you think you have something wrong with you?'. And God help the person who says 'Have you considered the possibility that you think you're in pain because you're depressed?'. Or, as you get older 'Have you heard of a condition called Fibromyalgia?
I was first diagnosed at age 6. I'm now 47 and have been on medication that helps a lot for one year. That's all. One year. It has taken over 40 bleeping years to get a Psoriatic Arthritis label which now means I have access to stuff that actually helps.
Feeling snappy and sarcastic where that's concerned is an entirely reasonable response.
However - that doesn't give me the right to be a dick to anybody else outside the 'It must all be in your head' brigade. I don't lie, I don't make everything about meeeee (except for this post, obviously), I don't intentionally risk my employment opportunities or spout off publicly about people far more powerful or influential than I am when it has negative effects upon my future employability. I come up with the goods every single time. I'm not late, I'm not absent, I'm not obviously angry. Because I still need a roof over my head, I still need food on the table and I need some sort of financial stability for the future. It's not my fault. But it's happened. So I deal with it, ignore as much as I can, learned some extreme diplomacy and interpersonal skills and I am damn good at my job. I'm also a bloody good musician and technician. And actor.
Staying outwardly calm and getting the job done is the key. I might feel like screaming into the void sometimes, but inconveniently, there is always somebody in the way if I want to. So I don't. Because it's not their fault.
Collapse and hide or moan in private. When it's showtime, you get your tit together and you give the people their show.
) If you go looking for it then quite frankly that’s on you. Someone many, many threads ago said that instead of #bekind it should be #befair and that’s exactly what this place is - fair! It’s a balanced and fair discussion on the things YOU put out there. Own your 
) one bloody book. 
