Hello everyone

[AJhowell16]

I was diagnosed with seropositive RA in Feb this year, I started COBRA treatments straight away, but the flares have continued to get worse, I have had many steroid injections and even via iv, sadly nothing seems to be working at the moment and now ultrasounds have shown the start of damage in my shoulders, my methotrexate was upped to 15mg a week around six weeks ago, is it common for people not to respond to these treatments and flares continue to get worse.

[helixhelix]

Poor you, it's so disheartening when things don't seem to be working. But it is still very early days for you so don't give up hope as if you've only been on a fairly low dose of MTX then there's still good chance that it will take control. Even 15mg is not that high. For the vast majority of people the drugs do work, but it can take several months. I'm on triple therapy (MTX, sulpha and hydroxy) as the cobra double wasn't enough.

It also seems quite common that the disease seems to go completely wild the minute you get diagnosed - mine certainly did that as well.

But don't suffer in silence. Keep pushing your rheumy team as it's a fine line between giving the drugs long enough to work, and deciding that the treatment needs to change. do you know if your blood results have improved at all?

[AJhowell16 in reply to helixhelix]

Thanks for the reply, no my bloods have also stayed the same and my liver function score keeps rising and rising, to be honest I had been suffering symptoms for about 18 months before diagnoses and kept being misdiagnosed until they finally did bloods and found out what was going on, I know it's still early days I guess I was just hoping the steroids would calm the inflammation down.

[helixhelix in reply to AJhowell16]

It's sad how long diagnosis can take, but at least you got taken seriously in the end. If your bloods aren't improving in your position I'd then be nagging my rheumy team to seriously think about reviewing my meds. There are other options for drugs and sometimes it is a bit of an ordeal to find the approach that works best for you - so keep asking.

[AJhowell16 in reply to helixhelix]

I definitely will keep asking, thank you for your time and advice and I hope you are feeling as well as possible.

[Newjobnewlife]

Hi-I have started the cobra regime and my methotrexate is now up to 20 and sulphazalazine to 1.5 g twice daily-plus another depo me drone 2days ago-it hasn't kicked in but am hopeful it will.my rheumatologist is very reassuring .