I am forty-two years old and about three years ago it hit me. One day I started noticing that my finger was swelled, I didn’t know why. I kept an eye on it and the swelling was not going down. A day or two later I noticed that another finger had started bending on it’s own until it was bent as far as it would go and I couldn’t straighten it. A day or two later I was to the point where I couldn’t get out of bed on my own. It took my sixteen year old daughter and my husband both to get me out of bed and get me dressed. It hurt for them to touch any part of my body.
I was not aware that Rheumitiod Arthritis could hit so fast. I thought it progressed over a long period of time. Of course the doctor ran a lot of test for lupus and fibromialga. It took them a while to finally come back and say that it was indeed R.A. . My doctor had me try all kinds of different medicines but, nothing seemed to help.All I could do at this point was to sit in a chair and let everyone wait on me for a change. I was not used to having to do that.
After about a year of trying all these other medicines the doctor finally put me on steroids and that helped a lot. I couldn’t take them for long periods of time.Then I was in her office one day and she ask me if I would be willing to try a medicine called Methotrexate. I would have tried anything at this point. I agreed to it and she said when I left her office that day that she was not trying to prolong the R.A. but, instead she was trying to cure it. I was pleased with the outcome. Before long after being on Methotrexate I was up walking and slowly got back to pretty close to normal. I do still have a lot of trouble with my R.A. but I can at least cope with life a lot better now.