Hello, It sounds as though you are having a really difficult time and as you have discovered, many medicines are not very effective for the pain of arthritis. Self-management, however will allow you to take better control of the things that are contributing to your pain including (commonly) inactivi...

Hello, Many people think that osteoarthritis is just something that is a normal part of getting older and that pain is to be expected. This is absolutely not the case and there are lots of things that your husband can do to help himself. Self-management is essential for all types of arthritis so see...

Hello, It sounds as though you have been through a difficult time. Bursitis, or impingement, or other conditions that cause pain around the outer edge of the thigh (often now called greater trochanteric pain syndrome) are not the same thing as arthritis which affects the joints. Pain from the hip jo...

Hello Caz. You are right, 10 methotrexate tablets (25mg) weekly is the maximum dose. All rheumatologists follow a "treat to target" approach which means controlling the inflammation caused by rheumatoid arthritis as much as possible, preferably so that patients have no joint pain and tende...

That's a great question. There are many possible reasons but one of the most common may be that having pain often causes people to either lose hours of sleep completely or because sleep is fragmented and restless. Being sleepless then causes more pain and more fatigue. Having pain is draining emotio...

A mucus (or synovial) cyst occurs when there is an outpouching of the synovial membrane that lines a joint, usually on the distal (end) joints of the fingers as a result of osteoarthritis. It is a bit like the inner tube of a bicycle tyre bulging outwards and sometimes these cysts can rupture and le...

It sounds as though you have been on medication for a very long time but if you still have pain then clearly the medicines are not working and you should try to reduce them. Long term anti-inflammatories including ibuprofen are not recommended as they have many potential side effects including stoma...

Once you have been started on a biologic medication, provided that is continuing to work and that you don't have any unacceptable side effects,then there is no reason (financially at least) that it will need to be stopped and some people have now been on rituximab for many years. Rituximab, like all...

In a study of patients with knee osteoarthritis over 2 years, patients who received regular steroid injections had no better pain relief after 2 years than those who had no injections, and they also had more cartilage damage at 2 years. Injections therefore may cause a temporary reduction in pain, b...

Your symptoms sound very much more like fibromyalgia than anything else, especially given your sleep disturbance and progressive loss of mobility. If you have not already been seen by a rheumatologist, you should ask for a referral as many departments have fibromyalgia programmes that can help you t...