Arthritis is not something that goes away on its own. You should never ignore any drastic change in your body, especially one that can potentially cripple you. Although we don't know rheumatoid arthritis causes, there are some generalizations that can be made about people suffering at certain levels of the condition. Tests can be done to determine what levels of certain chemicals you have that indicate the presence of early rheumatoid arthritis. Recent studies have indicated that treating this aggressively helps the patient overall.

What Chemicals Do They Test For?

When a person has early rheumatoid arthritis, their bodies tend to put out higher amounts of certain chemicals. These chemicals do not seem to be the cause of early rheumatoid arthritis or create any pain. These chemicals include the protein Interluekin 15 (IL 15), Inerluekin 6, B cells (a kind of white blood cell), blood fats (LDL is especially looked at) and lysozomes (a kind of enzyme).

All kinds of rheumatoid arthritis, including early rheumatoid arthritis, is thought to be an autoimmune disease, which is probably why the body puts out these chemicals because it considers itself under attack. Early rheumatoid arthritis usually happens in women more than men.

Kinds Of Aggressive Treatments

A Dutch study called PROMPT treated 110 patients with early rheumatoid arthritis with a strong drug called methotrexate (a cancer drug) for one year. X rays showed that they had less damage to their joints than people with early rheumatoid arthritis who took a placebo. They also still had less damage after 30 months. However, methotrexate has very harsh side effects, which is the reason why the treatment is described as "aggressive".

Another study, called BeST (misspelled on purpose), has since backed up PROMPT. It tracked patients with early rheumatoid arthritis for two years who were taking a combination of methotrexate and Remicade (an anti-inflammatory). They were 55% less hampered by their early rheumatoid arthritis than those who took a placebo.

However, many patients with early rheumatoid arthritis are not eager to through the pain and expense of aggressive early treatment (and rightly so). The bottom line seems to be that each early rheumatoid arthritis case needs their treatment tailored to them as soon as possible. But, no matter how you choose to treat it, you can't just ignore your pain, swelling and stiffness and hope it will just go away. That is merely a prescription to guarantee that it will get worse.