What Are the Standard Treatments for Rheumatoid Arthritis?

OK, so a typical treatment for rheumatoid arthritis is you would start off with something simple like ibuprofen, most people by the time they've come to me, have that, they've already tried ibuprofen, and obviously it didn't work if they came to see me. If they have the high markers of inflammation then generally we would start them on a disease modifying anti-rheumatoid drug, and sometimes we'll use even a chemotherapy as a matter of fact, one of our gold standard is methotrexate, which is a chemotherapy and it's quite effective against rheumatoid arthritis, but it takes a period of time to start working, so it may take two or three months really to get the effect from the methotrexate and in the mean time in addition to ibuprofen or one of those type medicines, we often times will use a low dose of steroids, people are always afraid to take steroids, but steroids actually are the only Nobel Prize winning anti-rheumatic drug.

In 1950, Phillip Hinch won the Nobel Prize for using steroids in rheumatoid arthritis. They are very effective but the American College of Rheumatology says you, should be on 5 milligrams a day or less, they have the least number of or the least chance for a side effect. If you're going to take them three weeks or more.