Question
I didn’t notice answers to this, so i wanted to check with you. I have a few questions I hope you can answer that new RA people also might need to know: 1) I was wondering what the “best” medicine was that held the least side effects? I am worried about long term side effects. 2) How long can you be on 5mg of Predisone before you need to be off due to problems? And if 5mg daily works, do you need other drugs? 3) Are there natural things that can actually help with inflamation? Rigth now, the Prednisone actually keeps all inflamation away (right now on 10mg and going down to 5 in 2 days), i have some bone pain in knees, but pain killers could help that, was wondering if there were natural ways of taking non-prescription items that could help instead of Prednisone. 4) Do you have new drugs in the testing field by chance with less side effects we might see in 10 – 15 years? Thank you for your time.
Answer
So, let’s start to tackle these questions. The “best” medicine may vary depending on the patient. However, for most patients, of the disease modifying agents (DMARDS), methotrexate remains the drug that is best tolerated and the most well studied in terms of long term usage and side effects. See our section on methotrexate.
There are many patients on prednisone 5 mg daily or less and do very well. However, patients tolerate prednisone differently. Weight gain, osteoporosis, worsening cholesterol, worsening blood pressure, increased risk of heart disease, worsening blood sugars area ll potential side effects of prednisone even at low doses. Presence of these problems would be reasons to try to get off of prednisone. In general, trying to get off of prednisone would be beneficial.
I do not think there are natural items that can replace conventional meds. I hope the future will hold safer, better and cheaper meds.
