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   I thought I might add that to date we haven't seen the little beastie that causes RA, or other types of arthritis. If you find you are HLA-B27 positive, the probability that you have one of the arithritides is greatly enhanced. As I have had RA, and PhA (psoriatic) arthritis for 22 years and try to keep up with the research, to date we have not found the agent that causes RA. It is interesting that many people will recall a "trigger event" prior to experiencing symptoms.  RA people will be in an accident where they were injured and experienced a lot of stress then 3-6 mo. later, they will start feeling the symptoms of an Arthritis. So, in many cases, what we see is a patient who will experience a serious traumatic event in their lives, and then in a few months they will exhibit arthritis.   If it is a germ like agent that causes RA, it will have been around for millions of years, and mimics normal and healthy cells, such that our killer B cells do not recognize it as an enemy. I have yet to find a person who found an "allergy" that caused RA. If it were an allergy we could isolate it rather quickly as our allergy diagnostics are rather good. It is a mysterious disease and perhaps stem cell research will help recover lost tissue until we find what causes it. If your MD tells you, you have an arthritis, then you should be talking about management with something more than pain meds. Ask about fast and aggressive action to kick it into remission. Good Luck !  I wish you well. Roberoo  MPH