What arthritis can involve
Arthritis covers several conditions, and osteoarthritis is the most common of them: joint pain and stiffness that build over years, worse after rest or after a day that asked too much. The joints people notice first are usually knees, hips and hands, and the effect is less about one bad moment than about the slow narrowing of what feels possible.
What makes it hard to describe is the variation. Some days are fine. A record kept across weeks shows the proportion that weren't, and what tended to come before them, which is a more honest answer than whichever day happens to precede your appointment.
Symptoms checklist
Arthritis symptoms checklist to take to your GP
Below are some of the symptoms associated with Arthritis. You can print the Arthritis checklist and weekly diary and fill it in by hand.
See what applies to you, note how often it happens, and take it to your appointment, so the conversation starts further along. It describes your experience. It does not say what is causing anything: having many of these does not mean you have Arthritis, and having few does not mean you do not. Only a clinician can work that out with you.
- Joint pain
- Stiffness
- Joint swelling
- Reduced movement
- Fatigue
- Something else I want to mention
Print the Arthritis checklist and weekly diary Download as PDF
The list comes from the NHS and charity sources linked further down this page, and from what people living with arthritis tell us they keep an eye on. It is a starting point, not a test.
How a day can feel
If your days sound anything like this, taluvu was made with you in mind.
- “The first half hour of the morning is the worst.”
- “It's the stairs that tell me how today is going.”
- “Weather talk isn't small talk for me.”
- “I have stopped doing things without deciding to.”
- “Some days are fine, which makes it harder to explain.”
These are the kinds of things taluvu invites you to say in your own words, never a checklist of what anyone “should” have.
