Arthritis Information -Newbie (long)

Hi,

I was diagnosed with seronegative RA about a month ago. I have had issues with my hands for 5 or 6 years but never said anything about it. I noticed the changes the last year of college. It got more and more difficult for me to hold on to skinny or thin objects. In March 06, I started having severe lower back pain and was diagnosed then with plain arthritis. In May 06, I started having issues with stiffness at first then one day i couldn't even move out of bed and was running a high fever of 103. Figured I had the flu and took some tylenol and stayed in bed. But things got worse, I started swelling in my feet, ankles hands and wrists. at that point I knew something was wrong and went to see my doctor. He put me on celebrex and Percocets for 2 weeks and brought me back into his office with no change. At that point he sent me for a comp chem panel, sed rate and an ANA per my resquest with an RA factor. everythng except for the sed rate was ok. That was slightly elevated. He sent me back home for 2 more weeks with more celebrex and percocet. came back 2 weeks later and I was still swollen up. At this point he wrote me a referral to the RD. She is a wonderful woman by the way. She ran all the same lab work the primary did and put me on prednisone and ralafen which we had to fight to get the ins co to pay for. She also did Xrays of almost all my joints, hands, wrists, elbows, feet, and knees. They only showed slight pitting not as bad as she thought they were going to be. this was august 10th at that point is when she gave me the diagnoses of the seronegative RA. She at that point put me on 10mg of Methotrexate (had to fight the ins co to pay for), 750mg of Ralafen 2x a day, and 1mg of folic acid, she still wants me to take the prednisone I'm down to 5mg a day I tried to lower it to 2.5mg as she wanted it but i became majorly sick and fatiqued and the whole shabam all over again. So started taking 5mg again that seems to help. She still has me on the Percocets to help manage my pain.

I have 2 small children caught in all of this my oldest is 3 and my youngest is 15 months. for the first 4 months of this disease i was not able to pick up my son or even carry him down the steps for fear that I would fall down them. I still have this fear so now he lets me hold his hand and walk down the steps with me.

How long does it take for MTX to actually work.

Jennifer

Oh I forgot to say I am only 31 years old. I could use all the help i can get on information about the drugs listed above and what newer drugs might be better suited.

Hi Jennifer

Methotrexate is generally viewed as a good drug to try first, as it has been around for over 50 years and they know pretty much everything about it (plus it's cheap). It usually takes between 4 - 12 weeks until you feel better.

I'm on 10 mg currently and it took about 8 weeks until my knee swelling responded. I was on it 6 years ago and it bought me a complete remission for several years! (I don't have RA, but reactive arthritis, which behaves similarly.)