One of the most frustrating parts of being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis is realizing that there isn’t one medication that can instantly relieve your symptoms. Instead, you may need to try different medications for a few months at a time until you find one that makes a big difference for you. Sometimes, a certain medication may work for a while and then fail—so the process of finding a treatment that works starts all over again.
This trial and error is mentally and physically exhausting, especially because you’re already dealing with a chronic condition that can cause debilitating symptoms like joint swelling, stiffness, and pain. But you shouldn’t give up trying. There are so many medications available to treat rheumatoid arthritis, which means if one doesn’t work for you you still have options.
Many people have success with biologics, a class of different medications that attack various elements of your immune system involved in rheumatoid arthritis. When you find a type of biologic that works, it can really change how you feel in your body. (Keep in mind that your treatment options may change over time based on new research and newly available therapies. Make sure you have ongoing conversations with your doctor about which treatment options may be best for you.) To help you understand how this journey looks different for everyone, SELF spoke to five people with rheumatoid arthritis who had a winding road to the best treatment for them—and how it gave them their lives back.
1. “I had this feeling like there was hope.”
Lisa Copen, 53, was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1993. Over a period of three weeks, her feet, ankles, knees, and wrists became so sore and stiff that she could barely open a door and could no longer work the stick shift in her car.
By 2000, Copen had tried nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)1 in addition to disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), which target the immune system to control the inflammation. But nothing helped. As a result, she had significant joint damage and needed multiple surgeries to regain her mobility. Later that year, Copen talked to her rheumatologist about trying biologics to treat her condition—and that’s when her life significantly improved. After she made the switch, she no longer felt limited by chronic pain.
In 2003, Copen and her husband adopted their son, and just being able to throw a ball with him has been so rewarding. “It’s significant when you do something that’s very normal, and you realize five minutes into it that you’re able to do it,” Copen tells SELF. It was while walking around a mall with her husband, just before adopting their son, that this really sunk in. “I was walking along, and not really thinking about my pain. I had this feeling like there was hope.”
Although she still struggles to do certain things—like walk for long periods of time—Copen is happy with how far she’s come since her diagnosis. “We can celebrate our little wins, whatever they are,” she says.
2. “I’m no longer the mom who cries all the time.”
Stacy Courtnay, 43, has been in remission for the last 10 years, but finding the right medication took some time. Courtnay was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2003 when she was almost 25. By then, the stiffness and pain she started noticing in her feet about a year earlier had spread to her shoulders and wrists. “I couldn’t even squeeze the toothpaste,” Courtnay tells SELF.
Courtnay started taking a DMARD and a steroid to reduce the inflammation and pain2. When she got pregnant, she went off the DMARD to avoid complications. By the time her son was born in 2007, the arthritis had progressed to all of her joints. “I was bedridden,” she recalls. “My entire body wasn’t functioning.” That year, Courtnay started trying different medications but nothing worked for more than a few months. After about two years of this, and against her doctor’s advice, Courtnay stopped taking medications and experimented with alternative methods, such as oil pulling or doing a gluten-free diet. None of them worked.
Meanwhile, Courtnay was struggling to be a hands-on mom for her son. She couldn’t feed him or change his diapers. “Just laying on the floor with him was a challenge,” she says. She hated that she couldn’t play with him like other moms did. She remembers crying in pain after he accidentally knocked her with his tiny toddler hands. “And then he would start crying,” Courtnay says.
In 2012, Courtnay decided to try medication again and began taking a biologic that was given through an intravenous infusion every four weeks. By her second treatment, she was already feeling better. When her son called her to play outside, she could go with no hesitation. “I remember we were jumping on the trampoline, and he was all giddy and happy that I was out there playing with him,” Courtnay says. “I didn't want him to remember me as the mom who was always in pain and crying. And I’m not that mom anymore.”
Courtnay wants her story to give other people hope. She’s the community network chair for the Arthritis Foundation in Georgia, and is on the organization’s Patient Leadership Council. Now, she gives other people with arthritis this message: “I was in your shoes. I was hopeless and depressed for a really long time as well. But stick with it.”
3. “I’m able to do simple things like vacuum my carpet without worrying about pain.”
In 2019 when she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, Carrie Zamudio, 27, had a hard time accepting that the stiffness and pain she’d been feeling in her joints might never go away completely. “I thought, There’s got to be a way to find relief,” Zamudio tells SELF.
By February 2020, Zamudio’s right index finger had swelled up and turned shades of purple and blue. “It was humongous,” she recalls. Zamudio couldn’t pick up a mug or brush her teeth. If her husband accidentally nudged her foot while they were sleeping, Zamudio would wake up crying. Determined to find a fix, she tried cutting out certain foods that she believed triggered her rheumatoid arthritis flare-ups. But after a few months of this, Zamudio had lost so much weight that she decided to try medications.
In early 2021, Zamudio started taking a steroid and a biologic. Within two weeks, she noticed that her pain and stiffness was getting better—to the point where she can try to take the caps off of bottles (a task her husband used to do for her).
Now, she’s so grateful to be able to do things that many people might find mundane. “After the treatment, I feel like I can do things that everyone else can do,” she says. “I’m able to do simple things like vacuum my carpet without worrying about pain.”
4. “I basically have no limitations when it comes to lifting weights.”
At 10 years old, Randi B Likely dreamed of being a college gymnast, but her knee swelled up with pain for no apparent reason. Although it got better after a week, the same thing happened to her shoulder. Then, she started having periods of pain and swelling in her hands and feet. At the time, her doctor assumed it was tendonitis caused by her intense gymnastics training. Likely switched to basketball during her freshman year of high school, but the pain continued. “I felt like my fingers were jammed, but I didn’t remember jamming them,” Likely, now 24, tells SELF.
When she was 16, Likely’s mobility got so bad that she couldn’t even twist a doorknob, so she and her mom searched for answers. After six months of visiting multiple specialists, Likely was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2013. She first tried a steroid and a DMARD, but eventually moved onto a biologic which helped after the other two didn’t work. But in 2018, during Likely’s senior year of college, her symptoms started flaring up again. Her condition progressed to the point where she couldn’t even stand up to cook meals, let alone do a workout.
After about six months of escalating symptoms, culminating in not even being able to stand, Likely flew back home to see her rheumatologist, who prescribed a different biologic. Within about a month, Likely could tell the difference and was able to do things like wash her hair without pain. “I was mostly just thankful to get back to being self-sufficient,” Likely says.
Finding the right treatment allows her to work out three to four times a week, a mix of weight lifting and cardio, and to be in chiropractic school. “Chiropractic is very physical and you use your hands a lot,” she explains. She still gets flares, but her symptoms are manageable and she can even exercise the way she wants to. “If I wasn’t taking medication, I wouldn’t be able to do the things that I do,” she says. “I can basically do everything, even cardio. I built back up to being able to basically have no limitations when it comes to lifting weights.”
5. “I can look after my goats and run my business.”
Lainey Morse, 49, has a unique and adorable passion: goats. “My life is pretty goat-themed,” she tells SELF. Morse runs a goat farm and cocreated Goat Yoga classes with a yoga instructor in 2016. At the same time, she started experiencing joint pain and stiffness, along with overwhelming fatigue and brain fog. (Many people with rheumatoid arthritis say they have trouble concentrating or feeling focused3.) Morse was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis fairly quickly, but it took her a while to find a treatment that worked.
She began taking steroids, but they didn’t relieve her symptoms. “I was thinking, I’m going to be bedridden for the rest of my life,” Morse says. “I thought I was going to have to give up the business, because I couldn’t even function.” She could no longer hold goat happy hours, one of the events she held at her farm, or look after the animals herself—which was the hardest part. “They’re my babies, so it’s important for me to be able to do that,” she says.
In 2019, Morse started taking a biologic and says her fatigue, brain fog, swelling, and stiffness improved within a few months. She is able to care for the goats again and to resume offering goat happy hours. “I have more tenacity than I did before. I don’t ever want to quit,” Morse says. She now feels more creative and was inspired to launch a goat-themed hotel—the Goatel—this year.
“Before my current medication, I would have been happy selling the business and living a lifestyle where I didn’t have to do much,” Morse says. “But now, I want to do better in business and life.”
Sources:
1. Cleveland Clinic, Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs)
2. UW Medicine, Corticosteroids for Arthritis
3. Arthritis Care & Research, Cognitive Impairment in Persons With Rheumatoid Arthritis
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