Living with a chronic illness can lead to depression and anxiety.  Research has indicated that patients diagnosed with RA are more likely to experience depression than healthy individuals.  Similarly, patients diagnosed with depression are more likely to experience anxiety.  

When you were first diagnosed with RA, did you feel relief to have a diagnosis?  Were you worried about the future?  Did you feel helpless and get depressed?

My RA symptoms were so dramatic at time of diagnosis that I...