I want to thank everyone who participated in the poll. I started the poll because being curious by nature, I really wanted to know how much of everyone’s day is spent focusing on rheumatoid arthritis.  I know how frequently I think about rheumatoid arthritis.  What I really wanted to know is whether or not  am I the average person with RA. Am I the exception or the rule?  Does the amount of time I spend focusing on this disease effect how I see the world?  Does it effect how I interact with other people?  What impact does the focus of attention have on how I feel. Does how much I think about the disease effect how I feel?  Am I focusing on the disease too much and not enough on the person?

I think I need a bigger poll than this one for all those questions to be answered.

Well the result of this poll were fairly evenly distributed over all of the categories with the exception of the Not at all category. 

• 1% Not at all
• 21% Alot ( more than 75percent of the time)
• 22% Very Little ( less than 25 percent of the time)
• 27% Somewhat ( between 25 and 50 percent of the time )
• 29% More than I would like to ( 50-75 percent of the time )

Only one person in our non scientific poll did not think about RA at all.  It makes me wonder if they even have rheumatoid arthritis.

So I guess that means that what the norm is whatever or however you are feeling or thinking.  What I did get from this is that everyone seems to be thinking about this disease at least 1/4 of every day. Some of the responders said that  it depended on how they were feeling on any particular day as to how much they were thinking about RA.  I know that how much I think about rheumatoid arthritis is effected by how I am feeling.  Let’s face it when you are flaring and in pain, it is hard to think of much else. 

I wonder if this is an indication of how everyone is feeling.  50% of our responders were thinking about RA at least 1/2 of their day. That to me seems like a lot of energy used dealing with disease.  I had hoped to have questions answered and instead I have created more questions.