Go With Us! to EULAR 2025: Understanding Chronic Pain in Autoimmune Arthritis—What Really Helps?

In this Go With Us! episode from EULAR 2025, patient advocate Deb Constien dives into one of the most talked-about topics at the conference: chronic pain. If you live with autoimmune or autoinflammatory arthritis, you know pain isn’t just a symptom—it can affect every part of your life.

This video explains:
The difference between acute (short-term) and chronic (long-term) pain
What causes pain: inflammation, nerve changes, fibromyalgia-like symptoms, and more
How your brain and nervous system respond to ongoing pain
Treatment options: medicines, physical therapy, brain stimulation, cannabis, and more
Tips for non-drug approaches like pacing, mindfulness, and support groups
Why seeing a pain specialist might help when other doctors don’t understand your pain

Whether you’re newly diagnosed or years into your journey, this video can help you better understand pain—and find tools to manage it.

00:00 – Welcome from Deb: Why chronic pain matters
01:17 – Acute vs. chronic pain: What’s the difference?
02:04 – Different types of chronic pain: inflammation, nerves, and more
04:54 – Why it’s hard for doctors to “see” your pain
07:41 – Treatment tools: physical therapy, pacing, brain stimulation
13:17 – What we know (and don’t know) about cannabis and pain
16:02 – Non-drug treatments: acupuncture, CBT, mindfulness

Our hosts, Tiffany Westrich-Robertson, Leila P.L. Valete, Deb Constien, and Eileen Davidson, are on site in Barcelona, Spain, for the next few days attending this event, and here are the updates for June 13th, 2025 after Day 3 at EULAR 2025.

This is part of our Go With Us! series -- bringing patients along to global conferences so we can all learn together. Want to learn more about our Go With Us to scientific conferences series? Please go to our website to learn more and sign up to be among the first to get our newest updates and insider information: https://www.aiarthritis.org/conferences

AiArthritis helps those, like us, who are affected by autoimmune and autoinflammatory arthritis diseases, use their voices - as equals alongside other stakeholders - to solve problems that impact education, advocacy, and research.