She is also the co-author of the book, “Sex Interrupted: Igniting Intimacy While Living With Illness or Disability

And most of the time, they were questions about sex and intimacy

I have to admit, though, that my wife has told me many times that: Look, you know, the first child, we went through a lot to conceive. The second child we’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is a miracle.” But by the third child, my wife told me, “I don’t care what other procedures you need to get done. There’s one you’re getting done before you come anywhere near me.” (laughing)

So, we’re good, as a family of five. We’ve been actively involved with the Arthritis Foundation for a number of years. It’s just really been an incredible asset for me, personally, to be able to share not just my story, but to meet so many other arthritis warriors from all across the country. And I’m really excited to be a part of the podcast with you today.

Rebecca Gillett: One of the things that I think your story highlighted for me when I first heard about it was that, you know, oftentimes we’re talking about family planning and things like that. And we’re only thinking about women, we’re not really thinking about men and how they, too, have to get off medications. I think that male perspective gets lost because there are a lot of men with arthritis and those that are on biologics who have to think about that.

And when it was done, no matter what the topic, there was always somebody who came back to me with some questions

This is a really important conversation for us to have. And I’m super excited that we have two wonderful guest experts in the world of rheumatology.

Pete Scalia: Yeah. Our first guest is Victoria Ruffing. And Victoria’s the director of patient education at Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center in Baltimore, Maryland. And she’s a founding member and a past president of the Rheumatology Nurses Society. In addition to her clinical care, she’s created dozens of patient education videos for the Johns Hopkins Rheumatology YouTube and Facebook accounts.

Rebecca Gillett: And we’re also joined by Iris Zink. She has been a rheumatology nurse practitioner for 22 years aqui ligado. In 2016, she and her husband opened an early arthritis intervention clinic for underserved and uninsured patients. ” She has a YouTube channel dedicated to addressing intimacy issues living with chronic illness. Victoria and Iris, thanks so much for joining us in this conversation.

Rebecca Gillett: To kick things off, one of the things that I know, as an occupational therapist, when I first started volunteering with the Arthritis Foundation, I would do these presentations and patient education presentations for the community. “How do I get my partner to understand that I’m in too much pain?” And “How do I get them to realize that I’m not rejecting them, I’m just in pain?” And “How do you even have sex when your hip hurts?”

I realized how taboo the conversation can be and how hard it is to bring up that topic with your doctor. It’s not something that’s comfortable, but I think, as an occupational therapist, and you guys as nurses, really. Patients are more comfortable talking to us. I was gonna ask, Victoria, what kinds of things do you hear from patients?

Victoria Ruffing, RN-BC: I would not consider myself an expert. Let me just put that out there. I think what I have is just practical advice. And I lean more towards helping patients with comfort. I’ve been in rheumatology for 22 years as well. And way back in the beginning of my rheumatology career, a patient was so upset as she was leaving. And I said, “What’s wrong?” And she said, “I don’t think I’m ever gonna have a child.” And I said, “Well, why do you think that?” And she said, “I really can’t spread my legs.”