If I’m Diagnosed with RA, How Soon Should I Seek Treatment?

If I’m Diagnosed with RA, How Soon Should I Seek Treatment? (0:49)

There are always risks with treatment, just as there are risks in waiting. Your rheumatologist will try to treat your rheumatoid arthritis with just the right amount of anti-inflammatory therapy, says W. Hayes Wilson, MD, a rheumatologist.

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I think with any disease it's better to get the best treatment as early as you possibly can, there's is always weighing the pluses and minuses. Any medicine that's strong enough to help you, is strong enough to cause a side effect, and the more powerful the medicine, the more great the chance of a side effect.

Now side effects are things that can happen not things that will happen, however we're always conscious the more aggressive we treat the arthritis, that we're giving the right amount of anti-inflammatory and not too much.