None of the traditional DMARDs did anything for me. Went thru them all. Actermera is one of the final stage biologics to go to if all else fails. Traditionally the doc would start you on remicade, cimzia, humira or enbrel. Sorry if I missed a few. None of those helped for me either. I then tried orencia which worked like a charm but stopped after about a year and a half. I am now on rituxan and it seems to be working. The higher up the food chain you move in biologics the more harm you can potentially do to your system. Humira, enbrel and remicade fall into a categorie called TNF blockers. Orencia does something with the T cells. Rituxan totally kills your B cells. Do your research about the drugs available. May I suggest starting at arthritis.org or the magazine arthritis today. They put out a yearly magazine defining each drug, what it does, what category it is. At least it is a place to start. Good luck.

Thanks for the info bizemomm. I checked out arthritis.org and arthritistoday.org last night. It was very imformative. Hopefully I won't have to go through too many more meds before we find a solution.

hi Ree..i hope you find the right meds for you..i have noticed with my years of RA that i may have stiffness and pain in one area for days or weeks and then it's gone from there and be hurting in a totally different area next..it is baffling to have pain continually somewhere and not know where it will be next..i'll have someone ask oh how's your swollen ankle today...and i may have limped for weeks and the next time they see me all swelling is gone there n the pain as well and reply to them oh its fine...but today it's my hands killing me..they look at ya like oh geez is she just a hypocondriac..lol...but it's true for us with RA to have the symptoms move around through out the joints...hope you feel better soon..Ann

Hope you finally get a reprieve soon!! Good luck finding the right combo of drugs. Will be thinking of you! Hugs to you