Rachel Fuda at City of Hope’s 2023 Spirit of Life Awards in June 2023.Photo:Rob Kim/Getty
Rob Kim/Getty
Rachel Fudahas come a long way since she was first diagnosed with arthritis as a child. But the pain from the joint inflammation condition is still something she deals with every day.
“This is a lifelong physical and emotional battle,” theReal Housewives of New Jerseystar, 32, tells PEOPLE, opening up about her journey in honor of Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month.
“It’s the type of chronic illness that affects children and adults so greatly, but many of us with arthritis suffer with in silence,” she says. “I’m here to use my voice to change that; to let people know just how difficult life with arthritis can be on a daily basis and to let others suffering with it know that they are not alone.”
Fuda was 4 years old when symptoms of her arthritis started surfacing. The New Jersey native fell off the monkey bars at the playground, and doctors thought she had just broken her leg. But when they went to remove her cast months later, the injury hadn’t healed. Instead, her leg had grown four times in size.
“I was having an arthritis flare-up and it wasn’t diagnosed yet,” she says. “They put me on just a small dose of Naproxen, [an anti-inflammatory drug designed to reduce inflammation and swelling], and then it just went away. And I went into remission for years."
Rachel Fuda.Charles Sykes/Bravo
Charles Sykes/Bravo
It wasn’t until Fuda was in the fifth grade that she was officially diagnosed with systemic juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, now referred to as JIA.
“I was out playing with my friends and I just felt so tired. And I had this crazy-high fever that lasted two weeks,” she recalls. “My mom was traveling for business and I kept telling my dad, ‘Dad, my body hurts so bad. I can’t walk up the stairs. I’m sweating constantly. Something is wrong.’ "
A trip to the doctor and blood work determined the cause. “Once again, I was having an arthritis flare-up, only this time, it was horrible,” Fuda remembers. “I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t get myself dressed, I couldn’t brush my hair, I couldn’t shower myself. It was so incredibly life-altering for me.”
To alleviate Fuda’s symptoms, she was prescribed Prednisone, which is used to treat diseases and conditions associated with inflammation. “I was on an astronomical amount, about 150 milligrams, every other day, just so I wasn’t in pain,” Fuda tells PEOPLE.
The medication caused Fuda to gain weight, she says, and made her “extremely irritable.” So doctors offered her alternatives. “I was on every arthritis drug under the sun. I tried them all, and nothing was working.”
“It was ruining my life,” she says, noting how especially hard it was for her at that age. “Being an adolescent pre-teen is such a hard time in a kid’s life to begin with. Your body is already going through so many changes and then to add this on top of it? It was torture.”
“I went through such a hard time emotionally and I didn’t really have support from my peers at that time,” she adds. “I’m gonna cry, but I think back to those years — I was probably 12 to 14 — and I felt so alone. So many children with chronic illness feel the same way because as much as it is a physical battle, it’s emotionally and mentally equally as difficult to want to be like everyone else, but be so different at the same time.”
Working with theArthritis Foundationat the time allowed Fuda to deal with her feelings of not belonging. “They have a support group that they came to all the kids in the practice at the time, and that was so helpful for me,” she says. “It gave me a safe place to talk about my feelings and to connect with kids my age who felt the same way. I felt empathy for the first time from someone my age. It made such a positive impact in my life and I’m still in touch with a lot of people I met during that time.”
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Finally, Fuda found something that worked for her: a drug called Remicade, which she took every four weeks via an IV. “I was on the highest dose, but I was finally able to come off the Prednisone and gain some normality in my life,” she says. But “random flare-ups” continued throughout high school.
“It was so hard for me to navigate socially because no one understood,” she says. It’d be like, ‘Okay, today I feel great but tomorrow, I can’t get out of bed, I feel so horrible.’ And because of that, I missed so much school — which, as a kid, is so hard cause you want to be with your friends and fit in. Like, I was a cheerleader, but I couldn’t make practices. And of course academically, too, you’re missing classes. I wound up having to be home-schooled, on and off, throughout high school. My teachers would literally come to my home to teach me history, math… It was this new normal that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
A big problem area for Fuda were her hips. “I couldn’t get the pain to go away there. Anything I did just didn’t work — physical therapy, joint injections, nothing. I was waking up in the middle of the night in pain, I couldn’t sit without being in pain, I couldn’t walk without being in pain. My quality of life was miserable. And as I got closer to college, it really became this thought of, ‘How much longer can I put up with this?’ "
After seeing multiple care specialists, Fuda made the decision to have both hips replaced. Recovery wasn’t easy. She had to endure six months of physical therapy, angled toilet seats and even a special pillow to keep between her legs as she slept. But it was all worth it.
“It was the best thing that I have done for myself,” she says, glowing. “It changed my life completely and totally. I woke up from my first surgery and I was immediately in relief from pain. It was totally life-changing in every way, shape and form.”
Though she remained on medication, Fuda’s arthritis went into remission and she was able to start doing everyday tasks she’d never been able to do before. Trips to the gym inspired a passion for body-building, and Fuda even started competing in the sport.
But after meeting her husband John Fuda, the reality star chose to come off her medication in 2018 to get pregnant, since some of the arthritis drugs could impact fertility. But four months ago, long after having her two children — Gianella Jolie, 3, and Giuliana Rose, 16 months, both through IVF — Rachel started experiencing arthritis symptoms again.
“I started to feel achy. My hands were bothering me, my neck would make these weird noises. And I just kept saying to John, ‘Something’s going on,’ ” recounts Rachel, who adopted John’s son Jaiden, 16. “And I woke up one morning and my knees were so swollen I could not even bend them. My shoulder hurt so bad, I couldn’t even lift my kids!”
She made a trip to her rheumatologist to have the remove the fluid from her knees. But after her doctor analyzed her blood work, the recommendation was made to go back on medication.
“I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ And he said, ‘Do you really want to live like this?’ And he’s right. Because right now with this flare-up, to be able to do all the things with my kids, I need John’s help. To be able to get dressed, I need John’s help. It’s frustrating for me because I lose my independence in that. It’s very hard to navigate, even in adulthood and motherhood.”
And she’s grateful thatRHONJhad given her a platform to talk about it. “I met someone who also has arthritis recently and it was like a mirror image into what I’ve lived. And she said, ‘I love that you are sharing you story. It’s so inspiring to see somebody advocating for children and adults with arthritis.’ And It just made me realize that the impact here I’ll have is so much bigger than I ever imagined.”
The one piece of advice she has for those with arthritis? “Take it one day at a time and give yourself grace,” she says.
“This is something I’m going to be dealing with for the rest of my life,” Rachel shares. “The flare-ups can happen at any time, so I’m always going to need to have a plan in place. I’m always going to need to manage and work it into my life. Even now as I walk around, I have heat patches on my arms to help me. And you just have to take a deep breath and remind yourself that you can manage it. Because if you don’t manage it, it’ll manage you.”
source: people.com
