Your healthcare provider may have mentioned that the condition you’ve been diagnosed with—such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, or otherautoimmune diseases—has a relapsing and remitting pattern. What does that mean, and what should you know as you seek out a support system to help you cope with your condition?
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Definition
A relapsing-remitting disorder means the symptoms are at times worse (relapse) and other times are improved or gone (remitting). During a chronic pain relapse, the pain would be present partially or completely. During a remission, however, the pain would subside and require little, if any, treatment.
Because disease symptoms come and go in relapsing-remitting disorders, sufferers can often be lulled into a false belief that they are cured of their illness, when, in fact, they are only in remission.
Types of Relapsing-Remitting Diseases
There are actually several different types of relapsing-remitting diseases which can be illustrated with three conditions in particular.
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)is another autoimmune disease that often is classified as a relapsing-remitting disorder.Rheumatoid arthritis, which causes the immune system to attack parts of the body, affects tissue in the joints. These attacks cause episodes of inflammation that can result in stiffness and severe pain and can cause long-term andprogressive damage to the joints. Inflammation symptoms of RA can include fever, sweats, weight loss and fatigue. There are various classes of medications that can put the disease into remission for extended periods of time, depending on the severity of the disease.
Coping With Relapses
Coping with a relapsing and remitting disease is very difficult.We are creatures of habit and can adjust fairly well to a condition that occurs but follows a predictable pattern. The element of surprise, however, in a relapsing-remitting condition catches you off-balance and unprepared, just as other surprises in our lives, good or bad. When this happens recurrently, you may begin to distrust your body, a bad feeling.
Even when you expect to have relapses—when you’ve been told and read that they do occur—it can still be a shock when your symptoms come back. This can be even harder if your symptoms have been in remission for some time.
In addition, a relapse is a slap-in-the-face reminder that you really do have a disease. If you are diagnosed and your symptoms abate on their own or with treatment, your mind can easily be fooled that perhaps you are the exception. Unlike others, your condition won’t recur, or maybe you were even given the wrong diagnosis in the first place. A relapse is a not-so-subtle reminder that you have a disease and it is not going to just go away.
Coping With Remissions
What might surprise some people is that it can be as difficult to cope with remissions in a disease as with relapses. Have you ever caught yourself feeling anxious, wondering when the next “foot would drop?” A temporary (or longer) hiatus from a disease sometimes brings with it energy enough to really think about your disease. When you are coping with a relapse, you are focusing on getting through that stage of the process. But when your condition remits, you’re left with time to think: “What is this disease doing to my life?”
You may think that finding a therapist or taking part in a support group would be most important when you are in the throes of a relapse, but it can be just as important to seek support when you are in remission. It is then that many of the questions come to mind—the questions that make you take stock of your life. And, it is often those who have coped with relapses and remissions themselves who can best understand.
4 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Huisman E, Papadimitropoulou K, Jarrett J, et al.Systematic literature review and network meta-analysis in highly active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and rapidly evolving severe multiple sclerosis.BMJ Open. 2017;7(3):e013430. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013430Wasserman A.Rheumatoid arthritis: common questions about diagnosis and management.Am Fam Physician. 2018;97(7):455-462.Tamirou F, Arnaud L, Talarico R, et al.Systemic lupus erythematosus: state of the art on clinical practice guidelines.RMD Open. 2018;4(2):e000793. doi:10.1136/rmdopen-2018-000793Fiest KM, Walker JR, Bernstein CN, et al.Systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions for depression and anxiety in persons with multiple sclerosis.Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2016;5:12-26. doi:10.1016/j.msard.2015.10.004Additional ReadingKalb, R.The Emotional and Psychological Impact of Multiple Sclerosis Relapses.Journal of Neurological Sciences. 2007. 15:256 Suppl 1: S29-33.Solomon, A., and J. Bernat.A Review of the Ethics of the Use of Placebo in Clinical Trials for Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Therapeutics.Multiple Sclerosis-Related Disorders. 2016. 7:109-12.Firth, N.Effectiveness of Psychologically Focused Group Interventions for Multiple Sclerosis: A Review of the Experimental Literature.Journal of Health Psychology. 2014. 19(6):789-801.
4 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Huisman E, Papadimitropoulou K, Jarrett J, et al.Systematic literature review and network meta-analysis in highly active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and rapidly evolving severe multiple sclerosis.BMJ Open. 2017;7(3):e013430. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013430Wasserman A.Rheumatoid arthritis: common questions about diagnosis and management.Am Fam Physician. 2018;97(7):455-462.Tamirou F, Arnaud L, Talarico R, et al.Systemic lupus erythematosus: state of the art on clinical practice guidelines.RMD Open. 2018;4(2):e000793. doi:10.1136/rmdopen-2018-000793Fiest KM, Walker JR, Bernstein CN, et al.Systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions for depression and anxiety in persons with multiple sclerosis.Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2016;5:12-26. doi:10.1016/j.msard.2015.10.004Additional ReadingKalb, R.The Emotional and Psychological Impact of Multiple Sclerosis Relapses.Journal of Neurological Sciences. 2007. 15:256 Suppl 1: S29-33.Solomon, A., and J. Bernat.A Review of the Ethics of the Use of Placebo in Clinical Trials for Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Therapeutics.Multiple Sclerosis-Related Disorders. 2016. 7:109-12.Firth, N.Effectiveness of Psychologically Focused Group Interventions for Multiple Sclerosis: A Review of the Experimental Literature.Journal of Health Psychology. 2014. 19(6):789-801.
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Huisman E, Papadimitropoulou K, Jarrett J, et al.Systematic literature review and network meta-analysis in highly active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and rapidly evolving severe multiple sclerosis.BMJ Open. 2017;7(3):e013430. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013430Wasserman A.Rheumatoid arthritis: common questions about diagnosis and management.Am Fam Physician. 2018;97(7):455-462.Tamirou F, Arnaud L, Talarico R, et al.Systemic lupus erythematosus: state of the art on clinical practice guidelines.RMD Open. 2018;4(2):e000793. doi:10.1136/rmdopen-2018-000793Fiest KM, Walker JR, Bernstein CN, et al.Systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions for depression and anxiety in persons with multiple sclerosis.Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2016;5:12-26. doi:10.1016/j.msard.2015.10.004
Huisman E, Papadimitropoulou K, Jarrett J, et al.Systematic literature review and network meta-analysis in highly active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and rapidly evolving severe multiple sclerosis.BMJ Open. 2017;7(3):e013430. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013430
Wasserman A.Rheumatoid arthritis: common questions about diagnosis and management.Am Fam Physician. 2018;97(7):455-462.
Tamirou F, Arnaud L, Talarico R, et al.Systemic lupus erythematosus: state of the art on clinical practice guidelines.RMD Open. 2018;4(2):e000793. doi:10.1136/rmdopen-2018-000793
Fiest KM, Walker JR, Bernstein CN, et al.Systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions for depression and anxiety in persons with multiple sclerosis.Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2016;5:12-26. doi:10.1016/j.msard.2015.10.004
Kalb, R.The Emotional and Psychological Impact of Multiple Sclerosis Relapses.Journal of Neurological Sciences. 2007. 15:256 Suppl 1: S29-33.Solomon, A., and J. Bernat.A Review of the Ethics of the Use of Placebo in Clinical Trials for Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Therapeutics.Multiple Sclerosis-Related Disorders. 2016. 7:109-12.Firth, N.Effectiveness of Psychologically Focused Group Interventions for Multiple Sclerosis: A Review of the Experimental Literature.Journal of Health Psychology. 2014. 19(6):789-801.
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