Methotrexate and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can be a very painful and difficult disease to treat. RA is a chronic disease that affects over one million Americans, with more women developing than men.

It’s possible to have RA and not live with pain all the time. Some people have flares, times where the pain is difficult to manage alternating with time when it’s not too bad. Others live with the pain and disfigurement caused by the arthritis just about all the time.

With RA, the synovium (lining) of the joints becomes inflamed. This causes damage, which in turn causes pain and the disfigurement as the joints are shifted.

At first, treatment involves anti-inflammatory drugs to help keep the inflammation down in the joints, but for some people, the disease is so severe that this doesn’t help. Once they’ve tried just about every treatment available, their doctors may suggest that they try a medication called methotrexate.

Methotrexate was originally used as a chemotherapy drug for people with various types of cancer. It is a very powerful medication that must be monitored closely. However, researchers found that not only was methotrexate good for cancer treatments, it helped relieve the pain and disability of rheumatoid arthritis.

While this was good news, there was a lot of concern about the long-term effect of methotrexate in people who take it for RA. The good news is, a recent review of 88 studies on the topic has found that patients who took methotrexate over 2 years appeared to be doing well.

You can read more about the study and its findings in this article, Long-term methotrexate appears safe in arthritis.

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