How should rheumatoid arthritis be treated?

Rheumatoid arthritis is a joint disease that many of our friends will suffer from. This disease is relatively complicated to treat and requires good care in daily life in order to be treated little by little. Rheumatoid arthritis is prone to relapse if living in a humid environment. There are many ways to treat rheumatoid arthritis, such as drug treatment, surgical treatment, traditional Chinese medicine treatment, etc.

1. Medication

The principle of treatment is early diagnosis and early, reasonable, combined medication. Commonly used anti-rheumatic drugs are as follows:

(1) Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can inhibit the synthesis of prostaglandins and quickly produce anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. They are effective in relieving pain, but they cannot change the course of the disease. Commonly used drugs in clinical practice include glucosamine hydrochloride granules, ibuprofen, penicillamine, diclofenac, aspirin, indomethacin, etc.

(2) Slow-acting antirheumatic drugs are mostly used for rheumatoid arthritis and seronegative spondyloarthropathies. It has a certain control effect on the disease but the effect is slow. Commonly used ones include gold mixture (intramuscular injection or oral administration), penicillamine, sulfasalazine, chloroquine, etc.

(3) Cytotoxic drugs produce immunosuppressive effects through different pathways. Commonly used ones include cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and Jin Duchun. They are often second-line drugs for systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis and vasculitis. Although they have more and more serious side effects, they play a big role in improving the prognosis of these diseases.

(4) Adrenal cortical hormones are anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic drugs that significantly improve the prognosis of connective tissue diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus, but they cannot cure these diseases. Its numerous side effects increase with increasing dosage and prolonged treatment course, so when using it, its efficacy and side effects should be weighed and selected with caution.

2. Surgical treatment

Including different orthopedic surgeries, artificial joint replacement, synovectomy, etc. Surgery cannot cure the disease but can only improve joint function and ability to live better.

3. Bone marrow transplant

It does have significant therapeutic effects in treating rheumatoid arthritis. Autologous bone marrow transplantation, which restores the immune system to promote recovery, has achieved good results in treating childhood rheumatoid arthritis. The specific steps of bone marrow transplantation are: first extract the patient's bone marrow, treat the bone marrow with drugs and radiation to remove the T cells, then inject the treated bone marrow back into the patient's body, and use special drugs to promote the growth of the patient's bone marrow and restore the patient's immune system to normal. It can prevent patients from suffering from the disease for several years, which is very important for children whose skeletons and joints are growing.

4. Other treatments

Physical, rehabilitation, vocational training, psychological and other treatments are an indispensable part of the comprehensive treatment of this type of disease.