i want to know about the range of treatments available for rhumatoid arthritis?
my wife(28) is on medication of a combination of medicines
methotraxte,hydro chloroquine,saazo and other supportive pills
for the last 3 years. she has not been cured of her pains but the pain is definitely under control.is this the best treatment?
No, definitely not. Antibiotics should be added to anti-inflammatory and pain medications.
I have had seronegative rheumatoid arthritis for almost 27 years. The telling signs of seronegative rheumatoid arthritis are the following:
- Joint pain in the feet (or cracking ankles) in the early 20′s;
- Fatigue;
- Joint deformities of the fingers, a specific sign of rheumatoid arthritis;
- Negative or low level of Rheumatoid factor;
- X-Rays showing bone erosion, a consequence of rheumatoid arthritis;
- Generalized arthritis, involving the whole body;
- Elevated levels of C-Reactive protein and Sedimentation rate.
NSAIDs like Voltaren, COX-2 inhibitors like Celebrex, acetaminophen like Tylenol, and codeine are all used to control inflammation and relieve the pain of arthritis.
Regular exercise like walking, biking and swimming are also helpful for most patients. Make sure that your wife is not overweight as carrying too much weight can only increase the pain of arthritis.
Your wife should consult an Orthopaedist who will order blood tests, joint scans and X-Rays to better diagnose the type of arthritis from which she suffers.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (http://www.aaos.org) maintains a public online directory where you can find the address and phone number of orthopaedists who belong to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Orthopaedists are listed by geographic location and family name, inside the USA and in most countries.
The membership directory of the AAOS is located at:
http://www6.aaos.org/about/public/members.cfm
Lyme disease could be a possibility. Ask the doctor to test your wife for the bacteria causing Lyme disease.
Are there any other cases of arthritis or rheumatic diseases among your wife’s relatives? Chronic forms of arthritis are usually prevalent in families where a defective gene is passed on by parents to their children.
There are a few hundred types of arthritis and rheumatic diseases. The good news is that science is progressing rapidly in its understanding of rheumatic diseases.
Antibiotics are now used to achieve full remissions for at least 40%, if not 65% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. For more info, please join our group at:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/antibio
Click here for more information on the most effective arthritis pain relief treatment.
Confirmed Tips For Dealing With Your Joint disease
Having to deal with arthritis in your daily life is stressful, but finding ways of relieving your pain should not contribute even more stress. The tips offered here, if applied, will help you follow through on your own normal daily routine and remove some of the stress related to having arthritis.
What will my pain management doctor do next?
I’ve been to a pain management doctor for my scoliosis and the first visit he put me in a physical therapy program and gave me a script for some patches. The PT made my back worse if it did anything at all and the patches dont work. He said I was too young for pain killers but I need them badly. Whats the next step? if the pt and patches didnt work will he reconsider pain killers?
Ask him again in a very mature way, no pleading or whining.
Tell him he ought to give you a chance, and if necessary, you’ll even submit to random urine tests to prove you’re not going to abuse the medication. Tell him your quality of life is suffering, you’re no longer able to enjoy social activities or babysit or work at whatever part time job you have. Tell him your sleep is suffering. Tell him you’re simply willing to do whatever it takes – you’ll comply – for him to give you a chance. Say you deserve a chance.
I understand what you’re going through, sweetie. I have serious chronic pain myself – nerve damage from lupus – as well as several kidney infections every year from a complication of a birth defect I was born with. I’ve been battling with doctors for years over pain management issues. It makes me absolutely furious when I’ve been treated like nothing more than a drug seeker.
Unfortunately, for everyone of us genuine sufferers of chronic pain, there are a hundred people who fake pain and/or injure themselves to get pills, people who “doctor-hop” to get multiple prescriptions, and people who try to get prescriptions so they can sell the drugs on the street. These assholes have ruined it for people like us.
I had given up long ago to try asking for pain medication. Unfortunately, I started drinking too much to numb the pain, and overdosed daily on Tylenol (like 12-20 per day, and you know you don’t get high on Tylenol). I knew I was likely doing serious damage to my liver, but I didn’t care. I cared more about my quality of life (which means having less pain and not begging god to kill me every day) than I did about quantity of life. In other words, I would take 2 years of living with less pain over living many years with severe pain every day.
I finally ended up in the hospital with acute pancreatitis, and I told them the truth of what I had been doing. Finally they took me seriously, and did a rush order on getting me into the pain clinic at the hospital. Later, my family doctor apologised to me for not helping me better. He had given me a real bad attitude before.
So now I’m on good painkillers, and they are strictly controlled. I did the same things I advised you to say to your doctor. He was nervous, especially that I had now created a past with alcohol abuse (by the way, I don’t believe I’m an alcoholic, no matter what anyone says. But I don’t drink much now, anyway).
So anyway, I empathise. It is horrible being looked down on by condescending doctors. I have always wished that every doctor have to experience a day of the pain people like you and me suffer. They would quickly get the point.