Don't worry about the temper - pain makes you anxious, depressed and really, really mad. I can certainly understand your frustration -it sounds as if you're up against a wall. I have a few suggestions.

First, if you think I'm missing something, I'd recommend you go back to your family doctor and talk to them about starting over in the testing process. You can also talk to your rheumatologist about whether it's possible you have another autoimmune disease instead of RA. I'm a big believer in trusting your instincts and if yours are telling you something else is happening, pursue that.

Is your pain primarily in the muscles or your joints? Although RA can affect muscles and tendons, as well as joints, usually, if it's fibro, your muscles with be the ones that hurt the most and if it's RA, it's your joints. However, it's also possible that you have both. Check out the fibromyalgia area on our Chronic Pain site for more information to see if it rings any bells. If you do have fibro, medication alone will not be enough. I have fibro and RA and sometimes I'm not sure which of them is causing me pain, but if I take painkillers and they don't do much, it's usually fibro. Fibromyalgia needs a toolbox of pain management tools and medications only be the beginning - muscle relaxants can be helpful, nerve pain medication such as gabapentin can be helpful, but most people use Lyrica instead, so you may want to try that. Meditation is also good - check out an audio program called Mindfulness for Beginners to learn how - and staying warm is essential, as cold makes your muscles things up. That said, since you have damage in your joints, clearly you don't only have just fibro, but the question is whether it's RA. Have you considered a second opinion? Sometimes a new pair of eyes can see things in a different light. As well, sometimes it can take a long time to find a medication that works for you, as some cases of RA are really stubborn. Since your pain increases when you go off prednisone, it seems to be an indication that you have some sort of inflammatory thing going on that may very well be RA and it sounds as if is not controlled well, which means you may not have found a medication that works for you yet. I would recommend you go back to rheumatologist and start asking questions about why it's not working, what kind of options you have for treatment, etc.

You don't mention whether you're in any painkillers other than gabapentin and muscle relaxants, so I'm assuming you're not? Trying one of the anti-inflammatories like Celebrex, Mobic or naproxen might be helpful and you may want to ask for referral to a pain specialist. It's also possible that it is pain from the damage in your joints and that wouldn't be addressed by muscle relaxants, so you need a different kind of pain medication However, the first step to managing your pain is to get your RA (or whatever it is) under control. Which brings me the toxicity issue. We are brought up to believe that taking medication as bad, that the chemicals will mess with our system and of course there are side effects (see my post on managing side effects), but if you do have a disease like RA, medications are your friend (of course, provided you can find one that works for you). You need to protect your body from the damage that is caused by RA, as it will protect your future mobility.

That's a lot of very vague suggestions, but I hope I've given you some ideas on the next step.

Please let us know how things go?