Joint Damage Happens Faster Than You Think

Early RA Damage and Why Timing Matters 0:00

Most people think joint damage in RA happens over a decade, but the truth is significant irreversible damage actually starts in the first 6 months of feeling your symptoms. But there is a good news, treating it early does not manage just the pain, it can actually change the course of rheumatoid arthritis. Hi all of you Rheumatoid Arthritis warriors, this is Dr. Ananda Subedi, your rheumatologist co-host at TheRoomDoc and a practicing rheumeatologists here at Empower Arfitis and Rhematology Centers.

As we discussed in the last video, the time is so crucial in rheuma to arthritis and in today's video I'm also expanding more on why that's the case and how do we use a holistic way of managing rheuematoide arthritis. Please stick around. Before I go further, don't forget to like and subscribe to our videos and also let us know what type of content do you want to hear from us. Please put comment in the comments below so that we can understand better about your needs of what kind of information related with rheumatoid arthritis could help you.

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Holistic RA Care and Support Team 1:12

prepare every morning to fight against rheuma arthritis. Now quickly recapping on what we talked last time we talk about treating early RA can save your joints. As we all know rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease where your immune system is just hyperactive. There's unusual fire in your joints and that fire could cause long term joint damage. So we need to put out that Fire using medication as well as lifestyle changes. We talk about the importance of putting that a fire out early so that it does not burn your joint causing joint.

So that is the most important point that we need to remember in rheumatoid arthritis. So in the video today, I'll go over the complementary actions that you can take to better manage your rheuma arthritis Now when we talk about the complemented treatment, we have to look at the holistic way of managing rheoma arthritis and that includes exercise, education and teamwork. As we discussed, RA is a systemic disease. Hence, we need to have a better system and within the system we have multiple people that help you manage your rheumatoid arthritis.

You cannot manage RA by yourself. You need a team that includes your primary care doctor, your rheumatologist, which is one of the key players in managing rheumbotarditis, and your physical therapist, a pharmacist. Pharmacists have an important role in helping you manage RA. And the reason is RA medication are complex. They have side effects, they have interaction between different medication you are taking, and they can have other consequences of taking those medications. So a pharmacist could help you understand better about those medication.

Your rheumatoidologist will also help you learn those medications but a rheumeotologist along with a pharmacist could help learn more about those drug interactions and the side effects that we need to watch out. Nutrition also becomes a key important part of rheuma arthritis management. Many of the time you can learn by yourself but you might also need help with the nutritionist. and in particular nutritionists who are aware of autoimmune diseases so they can guide you what are the food that you can add and what other food you need

Medications, Flares, Vaccines, and Infection Screening 3:39

to avoid so a nutritionist can give you that guidance and, in some cases, Some people who have rheumatoid arthritis, they could also suffer from mental health issues. Unfortunately, rheuma arthritis can cause significant life changes that can lead to anxiety, depression and other mental issues, so if you have those, you need to have your psychologist or a psychiatrist in your team. So, RA management is like having a team of players. You need to have different players in the team. That includes your primary care doctor, rheumatologist, a pharmacist, therapist, and a nutritionist.

So if you have a good team, then you can effectively manage your rheoarthritis early. Now even though you may have good teams, sometimes you need some other tools that help you manage day to day symptoms. That's why understanding how you use those medications safely in a day to day basis is essential. That includes some of the over the counter medication such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. And the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory such as ibuprofen or other nonstereoidal can help you manage your day-to-day pain symptoms.

But the key is they are just helping you to manage symptoms, they don't fix rheumatoid arthritis. So you need to add disease-modifying antirheumatic drug to help effectively manage rheuma arthritis But the NSAID could be a tool that you can use to manage your day to day mild joint pain. In case of more severe joint pains, such as when you are having a fire, then you do need some corticosteroids or prednisone. So use prednison as an add-on for your flares. don't use prednisone as your long-term medication.

As we have discussed extensively on the downside of taking steroids long term in our earlier videos, which you can refer to, but to summarize, corticosteroid or predisone has a lot of side effects. That's why use them cautiously. Use the lowest dose that is needed to control your symptoms and the shortest duration of time. Always be mindful of how long and how much steroid you are taking. Many of the medications that we have discussed on managing rheumatoid arthritis have side effects that includes risk of infection.

So vaccination is a key component of decreasing your risk for infection so check with your primary care doctor what are the A's appropriate vaccines that you can take. If you are taking those immune suppressing medications you might need some additional vaccination beyond your A appropriate vaccine. So your rheumatologist can help you guide what are those vaccines. Even before you start medication, it's important to screen for hiding infections, particularly TB or hepatitis. Some of those medications such as methotrexate or other biologics that can activate any hiding infection.

So, your Rheumatoid is always help. You get those tests done prior to starting those medication.

Cardiovascular Risk and Treat-to-Target Remission 7:03

Now the third key component in managing rheumatoid arthritis is managing your cardiovascular disease risk. Rheumatitis is a strong risk factor for having heart diseases such as heart attack or even strokes. So understanding those risk factor and managing those factor is essential in helping you decrease your risk. That includes managing your high blood pressure, managing you diabetes if you have, and your cholesterol level is as important. So talk with your primary care doctor, talk to your rheumatologist on how you can minimize those risks to decrease you long term risk of having heart diseases.

Now, we have discussed this in the earlier video on having a target. In rheumatoid arthritis, having and we call that treat to target. So in RA treatment, there is a target and the target is achieving remission. Let me also recap what does it mean by remition. Remission means minimal symptoms, minimal inflammation in your joints when your doctor examine your joins, and then normal blood markers such as sedimentary syndrome and C-reactive protein. Those are the two markers of inflammation. So we should have those goals of getting up to remission.

And the reason is if you have RA and if we are able to achieve remissions, your long term outcome is very good and your overall quality of life is excellent. So always ask your rheumatologist, what is my goal? What is the target we're aiming with those medications and lifestyle changes? And when you have those goals, then you can adjust your treatment based on where you are now. And if you're not doing well, if are not able to achieve that remission, ask your rheumatologist what we can change. What we add or what can we change with your medication so that we achieve the goal.

That includes biologics or other disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs. Personally, we have so many combinations of drugs that you can use to manage your rheumatoid arthritis. So don't get stuck with uncontrolled rheummatoids. If you are not feeling well, if your joints are still inflamed, always aim to achieve that remission and help your rheometologists understand about their disease activity and they will help you control the disease to achieve that goal. And with the available treatment we have with sequential treatment, we can get remission up to in 75% of the cases.

In the rest of cases, if we add lifestyle changes, then we achieve better disease control. So don't underestimate the power of lifestyle change in RA treatment. Now all of you rheumatoid arthritis warrior, thank you so much for watching. If you like this video, please like the video and subscribe to our channel and also share this with your loved one.

Early Treatment, Monitoring, and Long-Term Outcomes 10:03

At Roomedoc, we have a big goal for 2026. We want to at least reach out to 100,000 subscribers who have rheuptoide arthritis. So please help us achieve that goal so that we can help as many rheo patients as possible throughout the globe. So help in our mission. Now these are two important facts that you should always remember. The first one being importance of timely treatment. Delay in treatment increases your risk of permanent joint damage. So save your joints. Start treatment early. And initial treatment with methotrexate is our first start.

But this is just a start There are so many other treatment options if in case methotrexate is not effective. We have so much other disease-mortifying anti-rheumatic drugs, we have many biologics which can help along with metotrextate or without metatrectate to achieve that goal of well-controlled disease in RA. And always remember we can prevent the house on fire, we prevent joint damage if we aggressively treat early with close monitoring. And let me also reiterate the importance of monitoring, We understand the medication that we use for RA has side effects.

So the key is close monitoring of your symptoms and regular blood work by your rheumatologist. With those, we can minimize the side effects. And there's always the benefit of early treatment. The early treatments transform the whole course of rheoarthritis and it will transform your life. If you treat early, you may not even feel the pain of Rheumatoid Arthritis. You might be taking some medication, but your quality of life becomes significantly better if we treat early. So from this small fire, we can prevent the whole house being burned down.

We can't prevent your joint from damaging, which is irreversible. Help protect your joints. Thank you so much all of you rheumatoid arthritis warriors listening to us in this video. And then please, if you like this, video, please like and subscribe to our channel and then let us know how do you liked the video? What are the other different content you'd like to hear from us? And we'll be coming with those content in the future. you