Is osteoarthritis classed as a disability?

Hello @Badbones‍, thank you for opening this discusion and sharing what you've been going through.

Let me tag some other members who may be able to share their experience with this.

Has anyone successfully gotten on disability? If so did you use a lawyer? Can you share your experience? How did the procedure go? 
@sydneywaters‍, @emilybrown‍, @CynRep‍, @burgie‍, @Clsammons01‍, @GmaTrish‍, @Mgreen‍, @Lactta‍, @Johanson820‍, @PRETTYPINKDOCTOR‍, @Bartoatmeal‍, @Dottress01‍, @LeahKay‍, @Beyou22‍, @Ihurt123‍, @Fabbie‍, @Mdsol12‍, @Cinbobp‍, @Butterflypin22‍, @liverbird‍, @rosemarya309‍, @Nikodav‍, @Vegas43‍.

Take care,
Courtney

Courtney et al,

I was diagnosed with RA as well as my previous diagnosis of OA from 10 years earlier. My RA diagnosis was when I was in my fifties, I'm now 74. It became especially evident by the way I was increasingly bother by deformities of my fingers first and then my toes. My feet got so bad, as they were curling under my feet and causing me to walk on them. Eventually by the time I was 70 and already had bilateral total knee replacements, my doctors were very concerned that the walking on my turned under and outward toes I would develop infections in my bones.

The OA is worse with weather and the RA is worse in the morning and also with falling barometric pressure. I have long said that the Weather Bureau should hire people with arthritis because we can feel a storm front coming days before it arrives as the barometric pressure drops the inflammation is allowed to increase.

RA of course is an autoimmune disorder that can be inherited, and recently I have read studies that suggest RA may occur as an immune response to a viral (probably) and/or bacterial infection that confuses the immune system because of by products that can persist after an infection is resolved, and these can confuse the immune system into attacking our own cartilage and bones.

I got a very severe case of Shingles when I was 8 years old. It was so bad that my mother was required to give me phenabarbitol to sleep at night.