Rheumatoid arthritis is the most common form of serious inflammatory arthritis. It is a debilitating disease that causes your own immune system to attack the joints of your body. It affects about 3 people for every 10,000 every year and women about four times as often as men.

Modern treatments are available and viable, however, and you should know the options. These treatments can work to improve quality of life, slow disease progression, and prevent work disability. The newest treatments you should know about are in four different categories: Non-pharmacological treatments, pharmacological drugs, biologics, and Prosorba column therapy.

Non-pharmacological treatment

These types of treatments are used to relieve the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, without targeting the cause of it, but by keeping your body strong against the disease. Non-pharmacological treatments include physiotherapy and occupational therapy.

Pharmacological drugs

Analgesics can be used to relieve the painful symptoms of arthritis. They simply numb the pain at the site of join inflammation (or in your entire body), but do not actually treat the disease.

Anti-inflammatory drugs are much like analgesics. They reduce pain by alleviating inflammation where they are administered. Taking these are important in rheumatoid arthritis because inflammation can cause massive damage and a lot of pain.

Steroids are used to reduce the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Steroids are signalling molecules which can signal cells in your body to change their biochemistry.

'Disease modifying antirheumatic drugs' or DMARDs are more modern medications that can target cells or molecules of the immune system to attempt to control the cause of the disease. They have more side-effects than other medications, but they may be necessary in advanced cases.

Biologics

In an immune disease like rheumatoid arthrits, immune signalling molecules in your body called 'cytokines' are generally imbalanced. If they could somehow be brought back to a normal balance, the disease could theoretically be stopped in its tracks.

Biologics target these immune signalling molecules and eliminate the culprits from your body to restore balance in the immune system. It is a new field, but it is promising for people who have run out of options with rheumatoid arthritis.

Prosorba Column Therapy

Prosorba column therapy is much like dialysis for rheumatoid arthritis patients - but instead of filtering blood for toxins, it filters blood for antibodies.

The antibodies taken up by the column are the culprits behind joint inflammation and pain. Removal can be very beneficial to the patient. The column contains a protein called Protein A which can bind to many different kinds of antibodies.