Is there a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis?
Touchy subject: a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis
It seems like the there are thousands of the websites about Rheumatoid Arthritis which tout one cure or other. One of them must be real, right? I wish.
The other day someone became particularly angry with me after I typed this: There is no cure yet for RA. I’m sorry. I wish there were. People really want to believe there is a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis. At my first rheumatology appointment, I asked whether there might be a cure. When I read my chart years later, it sounds like he thought I was a nut.
A food to cure Rheumatoid Arthritis
No, there is no food to cure Rheumatoid Arthritis. Wouldn’t that be great if we could eat yummy berries or fish instead of taking shots? Everyone I know would rather drink juice and swallow fish oil than take medication.
Nutrition is still important for RA’ers. We can use diet as one more weapon to fight inflammation. However, there other reasons: RA’ers are predisposed to several conditions which can be combated in part by nutritional methods. Examples are heart disease and osteoporosis. Look for more nutrition posts soon.
A medicine to cure Rheumatoid Arthritis
We are seeing some AIDS patients living for decades. Most of us know someone whose cancer has been cured. Could it be that medical science has just done so much in our lifetimes that we expect a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis to materialize soon?
I’ve never read a science or medical abstract which uses the word cure. So, I asked a friend who is always current on research for Rheumatoid Arthritis treatments to give me an opinion on RA cures. My friend said that we are decades away from a cure, especially since we do not yet understand how Rheumatoid Arthritis begins.
Are some people cured of RA?
What is so confusing is that Rheumatoid Arthritis has at least four possible courses. It may remit completely for a small percentage of people and never return. RA may flare and remit alternately without progressive damage or with increasing damage and disability. Or, RA may flare in an uninterrupted fashion, creating more damage all the time.
It is almost impossible to tell what causes a remission in someone whose Rheumatoid Arthritis remits anyway. If Rheumatoid Arthritis has been cured, then it will not return. And more significantly, if any substance could cure RA, it would work on the severe unremitting Rheumatoid Arthritis which has no natural remissions. These RA’ers can show only modest improvement even on disease modifying medicines (DMARDs).
Is this cynicism about an RA cure?
This site is written by a person living with Rheumatoid Arthritis who wants to see this disease eradicated from the face of the earth. If there were a viable cure, I would want to know about it and be cured. I believe there are at least two real problems with mistaken beliefs about an RA cure:
1) Some people do not treat their Rheumatoid Arthritis as they put their faith in a false cure, so they suffer greater permanent damage from RA.
2) As long as the public is confused about what RA actually is, what it is like to live with it, and what treatments and cures are available, it will remain difficult to educate the general public or obtain widespread support for a greater movement to find a genuine cure for RA.
In other words: It would be better for us if the world heard this: Rheumatoid Arthritis is a horrible incurable disease that causes irreparable damage. Let’s find a cure.
Recommended reading:
- A happy post about vitamins: Fun Ways to Fight Rheumatoid Arthritis
- How do we make the distinction: Are Natural Remedies Better?
- First of a popular series: Should Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Exercise?
- Barriers to Rheumatoid Arthritis diagnosis: What Makes Diagnosing Rheumatoid Arthritis So Difficult?
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I have wasted so much time reading and googling this especially after hearing about someone whose RA went away. This has only been going on for 6 months for me and I am having more trouble with incredible fatigue than pain right now. Not that I am not in pain but this fatigue is shutting me down and I have 3 jobs and can’t afford to take a time out. I have only been on Methotrexate about 6 weeks so its not working yet but 90percent of the people I discuss this with are certain that I am doing something wrong and get angry if I am not willing to try something. I am actually taking a ton of supplements etc but don’t plan on ditching the meds because I have read enough and talked to enough docs to see that would be incredibly stupid. I realize this is off topic but have been dying to ask other RA’ers if this fatigue ever goes away? Will the Methotrexate work for it as well (i realize it makes it worse the day after) and also do other people feel this even when their joints are not so bad? I feel like I have the flu everyday and its making me and my husband crazy. I apologize for the offtopic question but loved the post since it does come up a lot in my conversations with my family and acquaintances who all seem to know someone who was cured of their arthritis.. i think they are confusing RA and Arthritis but am tired of explaining.
Hi Francesca, My RA also started primarily with severe fatigue and stiffness. I did not have much joint pain until almost a year after my initial diagnosis. The fatigue did get better, but it wasn’t until after my doctor added a biologic to the methotrexate that I was already taking. The fatigue has not gone away completely, and I still need to rest more than I did prior to RA, but my energy level is much, much better. Keep working with your doctor, and do everything you can to care for yourself. Best wishes to you.
Francesca,
Why do people get so upset at us about this. I really believe this could change with better public information about RA. I hope…
The fatigue: for me, I found that the Mtx. is what really fights the fatigue. I’ve had opportunity to see what it’s like with and without this and that… and for me, without methotrexate, fatigue is MUCH worse. Six weeks is not long enough to get all the improvement you will get from this dmard, but when will you be adding another one? That may help more, too.
Also, there is a good discussion of this on Dec. 19 on my Facebook page. Did you see that? I’m sorry this is so hard.
thanks Kelly, I just read the facebook discussion. My next appointment is in 3 weeks and we were going to decide (after doing labs next week) whether I should increase the Methotrexate (am only taking 15mg) and/or add Humira. My rheumy has a preference for that option but we are trying to figure out how I can afford the copays. I think I found a way to get them reduced but would rather increase the MXT if in fact I start to see it working. I thought it was working till this Sunday but I guess i jumped the gun and just was getting a little break. My joints are really not bad. The first pain I had was in June and it did spread to just about everywhere in a short time but prednisone has gotten me through the worst of it. Am off it now and I am only having mild pain in my fingers, wrists, feet and knee with some occasional pings in my ankles.. I wonder if those momentary pains are even related since they only last a few minutes and are nothing like the way this started.. I get weird muscle contractions in my hands and sharp stinging pains as well which don’t really seem consistent but I guess I am learning to accept that everyone is different. My doc told me to stop trying to squeeze my symptoms into fitting the textbook RA as an excuse to question the diagnosis which I keep trying to remind myself to do
Francesca,
The symptoms you describe do sound familiar. The pains may be shorter in duration because of the medicine. It would probably be much worse without the medicine. I like what your doc said about symptoms. That is a good sign about him. Someday, there will be answers about why the disease manifests itself in slightly different ways in different bodies.
You are doing the right thing by fighting. Merry Christmas.
Hi Francesca,
Your doc is right, you can’t fit all the different types of pain and fatigue into textbook examples. Most, but not all of the pain I have now, after 13 years, is kind of different from the pains I first experienced. I am one who has been a chronic progression with some short periods of “remission” (I’ll say with less fatigue and less pain, but never really gone away completely). For me, those periods were drug-induced remissions I’ll assume, because when I did try to go off prednisone and/or MTX, it all came back. I remember the terrible achiness and even a sense of burning/stinging skin in my hands, and not being able to shake hands in the first few years.
I am with Kelly, that they will not find a cure any time soon and for the reasons she’s stated. It’s also because there are too many factors (genetic and environmental) that go into causing RA, and it can be different causes for different people, it’s just that it ends in a “relevantly” “common” end result of inflammation, fatigue, joint pain and damage, and for some extra articular damage. The beginning is not the same for everyone, the end is not exactly the same for everyone, and this will make it close to impossible to come up with a cure for everyone. There is perhaps even and emotional component in the cause, I believe, for at least some – it may lie in how one handles stress and maybe how much they internalize it, and how this physically manifests.
RA is a very, very complex disease or process – not as simple as wear and tear, bone rubbing on bone like many think. It can be very disheartening on many aspects, but just keep working with your doctor to find what combination of medications and other interventions will work for you. You have to have a good working relationship with your doc as this is a life long process to deal with.
Hi Kelly,
I think that people get angry because they do want there to be a cure for this darn disease. I also can see where they are coming from as I watched my grandmother battle RA. While she did not have the advances we do now, and with me recently being diagnosed, I am hopeful I will not have to go through the pain and inability to function as she did. I find your website and post very helpful. You are a REAL person who has gone through so much and I really appreciate you writing about your life with RA. I can only hope I will be as strong as you are should my disease get much worse. Thanks you for speaking from the heart as those of with RA really need a “warrior” like you!
Thanks Rosie.
My grandfather had RA, too. I wish he had had the medicines that we have. It will be even better by the time our grandchildren come along…
Hi all. I came across the following two papers. They will make your eyes glaze over, but it you can skim through the harder stuff to read the conclusory sentences, you will still glean a good understanding of the fact that RA is a different disease process (subtypes of RA, or “phenotypes”
and thus why it’s so hard to find a cure for it. If there’s someone out there who can summerize these in layman’s terms that would be great!
Discovery of distinctive gene expression profiles in rheumatoid synovium using cDNA microarray technology: evidence for the existence of multiple pathways of tissue destruction and repair (2003)
Transcript profiling towards personalised
medicine in rheumatoid arthritis
An interesting take on the pathogenesis of RA in the following abstract.
I wonder if, in the full paper, whether they address the sex difference in RA (mostly female), the role of hormones and perhaps pregnancy and reaction to fetus in females with RA:
Is rheumatoid arthritis premature osteoarthritis with fetal-like healing?
Hi Chelsea, I’m sorry I’m a little behind in posting comments & replying since I took a couple days offline for Christmas. I look forward to checking out these articles. The topic is very timely with what I plan to post this week. Thanks.
That’s o.k. Kelly! When I first posted it, I didn’t see the screen where it said it was awaiting moderation, so I wasn’t sure if it took, until I saw it again this morning when I went to re-post it. Thanks for taking the second one out. Looking forward to your next post!
Hi Kelly,
I hope you and your family had a great Christmas. I was hoping for your permission to use this article on a future blog posting on my daughters site as I feel the information would be very interesting to many of the readers. I would hope then I can lead more people to your site so they too can become more informed. My husband and I had a great discussion around how people are well meaning yet ignorant when it comes to the “cure” topic. I feel this article could be very helpfult to the readers of my daughters blog.
You can answer here or email me directly.
Thank you for your time and for all the thought, research adn time that goes behind your postings… I draw much encouragement from your site.
With love, T.
Teresa, go ahead and email me with the details. kelly @ rawarrior .com without those spaces. Thanks.
Francesca, I was diagnosed when I was 28yrs, that was 1993. Methotrexate was just coming into the picture so my rheumy wasn’t very keen on prescribing it. Fatigue was an issue then just as it is now with meth & Orencia and the other meds. You are totally right in that it affects different people in different ways. I’m sero-negative for the RA factor in my blood, I’m the only one in my family, past & present that I have been able to find with this. Getting support then was as hard as it is now….even with surgeries. The big plus that I have found is that it can make you a stronger person as you figure out what works for you(sometimes to a fault if you ask some of my friends lol!!). I know you will find your “groove” or rhythm if you will(good,bad or other), it will just take time.
Good advice, Becky. Thanks.