Lady Gaga doesn't have rheumatoid arthritis but one woman who does explains what it's like
- Published
Lady Gaga isn't suffering from arthritis, despite media outlets claiming that was the case last week.
She appears on the cover of Arthritis magazine with a caption that reads: "I fought RA pain with my passion."
But that quote isn't from Lady Gaga. Instead she's interviewed in the magazine about the chronic pain she's been suffering with for years.
During her Born This Way tour in 2012, a severe hip injury forced the singer to cancel the rest of her shows.
This is the full Arthritis Magazine cover., external
In the interview, Lady Gaga says she has synovitis.
It's a common symptom of rheumatoid arthritis and happens when your joints are inflamed but it can also be caused by overuse or injury.
"I hid my injury until I couldn't walk," Lady Gaga told Arthritis Magazine. "I had a tear on the inside of my joint and huge breakage.
"The surgeon told me that if I had done another show, I might have needed a full hip replacement. I would have been out at least a year, maybe longer."
Last November, Lady Gaga posted two photos of herself on Instagram, showing how she eases her pain by getting her shoulders massaged and sitting in a sauna.
It's a common misconception that rheumatoid arthritis only affects the elderly.
People as young as 15 can develop the condition, as Emily Jones tells Newsbeat.
Emily Jones is a 21-year-old student at Cardiff university. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis aged 15, a week before her GCSEs.
She tells Newsbeat: "It's been an uphill struggle ever since, but it's got better year on year."
It started with knee pains, but Emily says she went to the gym regularly so thought she'd just injured herself and stopped going.
But, it only got worse. So after countless visits to doctors, as well as blood tests and rheumatologist sessions, Emily was finally diagnosed.
'It can happen to you at any age'
"It's not like osteo-arthritis which old people get from wear and tear, and I'd never heard of it before, so it was completely out of the blue.
"I remember crying a lot because I was in so much pain, I couldn't get dressed because I was in agony, and I couldn't brush my hair. My mum had to do it."
Emily tells Newsbeat: "I shut down, I just cut off. I could not be emotional because I just needed to get on with it and get through it.
"That's the only way I felt I could deal with that amount of pain."
Emily has seen a huge transformation in her life since the age of 15
Emily suffered from stiff hands in the mornings and achy knees, and sometimes couldn't walk down the stairs and would just stay in bed.
"I can't really remember that summer because I blocked it out. I missed all my GCSE exams, so I just got predicted grades," she says.
"I couldn't move my fingers in the end, so when I had a GCSE art exam I couldn't squeeze paint into the pallet because I had no movement left."
Emily had to trial a lot of drugs before she found one which eased her pain.
Now she's on a biological drug and will have a drip infusion at the hospital once a month for the rest of her life.
"I can't even describe the difference between then and now," she says.
"I go to the gym four times a week, I'm studying at university and I just spent two months backpacking in south-east Asia.
"I'm pretty stubborn and I don't want my condition to get in the way of anything I want to do.
"I can't wear skinny jeans because they hurt my knees and I'm not very good with high heels but that is it."
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