For someone that wants to try an alternative: I had a blood- test done- the cost was only $1oo.oo. It was a basic food allergy test. You'd be amazed at how much of what you eat has to do with joint pain!! It took me a long time to adjust to, but avoiding all foods that you even have an intolerance to will make a big difference in how your joints feel! If you keep eating what your body is intolerant to, it'll start screaming at you! It screams by making you exhausted after a meal, and sometimes the "bad food" will be shoved into your joints by the liver because it is so overloaded with toxins to deal with that it just puts these things aside to deal with other priorities. Quite often, that is what causes joint pain and deformities, because your immune system finds these "things that don't belong there" and attacks them, AND your connective tissue, which may be healthy.
When I started with the R.A., I couldn't believe this! I though this was absolutely preposterous!! The longer I've done research on this disease, and the more I've tried to keep the R.A. from raising its ugly head, the more I've found that diet has a tremendous amount to do with diet! Another thing that has NOTHING to do with the medical field is "leaky gut"! When you stomach lining is shot, from long periods of stress, or long-term taking of antibiotics. This leaves your digestive system devoid of beneficial bacteria with which to digest your food... This makes your digestive system and your whole immune system get out-of-whack! This is quite often what brings on the disease.

It's been a long time but yes, I used to hurt from head to toe. Every couple of years it seems I have a bad flare like that and when it's done I'm left with new little souvenir. The last time it was pleurisy and intercostal nerve pain (between a couple of my ribs). I've had RA since I was kid. I have yet to take biologics. I'm only 37 and trying to keep that treatment in my back pocket. I'm currently back to mostly a natural approach.

ChristianDickerson- I've be3en interested in alternatives since 2007. I've got a lot of things that I wanrt to try. For instance: The royal Rife machine, A new item, Neurocet- Its not a medicine, but a combination of vitamins which causes your body to release endorphins and a special calcium that specifically goes to the joints, Calcium orotate, and for the side-effects of what I'm already on- Arava, hydroxichlor and orencia, a product which cleans the lymphatic system. Kind of expensive, but I'm willing to try anything once, and twice if it works!

I seem to go in cycles....I feel bad enough to finally go see
the Rheumy and I'll get loaded up on meds for a couple of years. .. then I get sick of all the side effects and still feeling like crap so I quit the meds and go back to the more natural approach for a couple years......
get the idea. LoL.
Right now I'm kind of doing a little bit of both. Trying Cymbalta for pain AND depression since my depression med wasn't working right. And I also take a muscle relaxer 2 to 4 times a day. In addition to all the supplements I mentioned.

Well... what are you currently taking?
I take high doses (and even higher since I moved to Oregon) of Vitamin D-5000 iu, a high dose calcium/magnesium, omega 3 that has both DHA and EPA (?), CoQ10, garlic, probiotic.... all of them should be higher quality
Like from a healthfood store. All of those things help with inflammation.
I am also a medical marijuana patient.