I was just diagnosed with RA, I think I've had it for a few years, and was prescribed Meth. & Pred.

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis - it's never fun to be told you have a chronic disease. The silver lining on this is that you've found our site. There's a great community here with lots of supportive and friendly people and finding others who are in the same boat is one of the key factors in adjusting and coping with RA.

In terms of medications, there's a sort of ladder - you start on one of the lower rungs and if that doesn't work, you move up. It's quite common for someone who is newly diagnosed to start with a combination of methotrexate and prednisone. Methotrexate belongs to a class of drugs called DMARDs (disease modifying antirheumatic drugs), which instead of merely masking symptoms (as anti-inflammatory medications would do), actually modify your disease by suppressing your immune system. Once your immune system is suppressed, the RA becomes suppressed as well. Prednisone is a steroid medication which is often used to give everything a boost and the combination of the two drugs well very likely make you feel much better. The treatment may take a few weeks to kick in - the prednisone is very helpful in bridging that period until the methotrexate takes full effect.

Many people do very well on these two drugs for years. However, if after a reasonable matter time spent on the drugs, you still don't feel that your RA is adequately controlled, you can talk to your doctor about other medication options and that's where you may move up the ladder. Hopefully, that won't be necessary for you for a long time.

Please ask as many questions as you need to while you're getting adjusted to carrying around something extra. There's lots of good information on this site and down the road, if you feel like it, you can even post your own Share Post to connect with the community in a different way. Good luck!

My medical insurance requires that I start with Methotexate for at least 3 months or at least try to take it before I can go on to other drugs. So far I am not having problems with it. It takes at least 6 to 8 weeks to work. Pred works fast for me, I just don't like the side effects so I now just take Naproxen for pain.