rheumatoid

   Broadly, having dull aching in joints, muscles, eyes, and so forth. In a more literal sense, it is having an autoimmune response, usually between certain IgM and IgE antibodies, that may have started as a bacterial infection or as some autoimmune reaction. The severity is increased under emotional, physical, dietary, and allergic stress-or any stress. Hans Selye showed a few years ago that once a chronic disease response occurs, any stress above metabolic tolerance will aggravate the chronic disease, which is why some people, stressed by cold, wet weather, must avoid it; but someone else is stressed by legumes, still another person gets upset (and stressed) by watching too much CNN. You know best what stresses you; it's not fair to ask a doc to find it out for you. Rheumatoid arthritis is so named because it somewhat resembles the joint inflammations that can occur in rheumatic fever, a completely different disease caused by a strep infection.