I started on biologics after diagnosis and they didn’t work for me. I am on a daily JAK inhibitor and a twice-daily NSAID and that has my pain controlled. The current swelling is something new, and is not painful.

The long-term prednisone use was to help me manage the pain while seeing if a biologic would work. It helped, but I still had to take ~15 mg of prednisone a day or I was in debilitating pain.

Plus it recently came out that the recommended daily values of vitamin D were based on a typo and are off by a factor of at least 10 (source).

Turmeric is questionable. A lot of early studies touting its benefits were published by the same person/group, and they had financial motivations behind it. Some has been straight debunked, and skepticism is a good stance to hold on it. Plus it’s been shown that turmeric supplements are a major source of lead, so the risk may outweigh the possible benefits.

Thankfully an RA diagnosis today is extremely different than one even 20 years ago, and I’ve only had it since the start of 2025. There are a lot of good options for meds, and there are some very promising long-term treatments on the horizon.

If actuarial tables estimate correctly, I’ll have around 40 years to live with this shit. My hope is for a cure before that happens (there has been enough advancement in autoimmune treatment even in just the last 5 years that it’s not a total pipe dream).

All that said, after spending most of 2025 with intolerable pain in my hands, I know if something prevents me from getting treatment long-term (like a societal collapse, not like pharmacy challenges), I expect I would find a way to …opt out. I was losing my mind until I found treatment that works (at least most of the time… this week is thankfully the exception now).

As for prednisone, I have extremely few side effects from it and no hyperactivity at all. I took it often from my diagnosis last May through this January. The first time was doses from 2.5–30 mg a day (normally 10–15) for most of 3 months straight. I had zero complaints while on it; however, upon stopping I was exhausted for about three days straight. Tired to the bone kind of feeling.

I ended up back on it for another 3 months, at or below 10 mg daily and I tapered more slowly, so the tiredness was much more manageable that time.

Like another commenter said, that’s a lot to expect of a pre-teen. I’m sorry you had to see that so young.

Prednisone is my rescue medication for flares, not my normal treatment. Hence why I thought I might take it just today.

I’m on two meds, one that came out in 2019. I’ve been diagnosed for a year this month, and I have cycled through five or so drugs to finally land on a combo that actually controls the pain. The current inflammation is unlike what I’ve experienced regularly before, in that it is purely swelling with no pain, but I also have a reasonable theory as to the cause. I plan to bring it up at my next appointment regardless.

Here I am staring at my sausage-like thumb that’s been swollen like this for three days thanks to rheumatoid arthritis. This article gives good context for why RA often results in OA at a younger age. Maybe I will go take a prednisone and apply another dose of diclofenac to try to knock this inflammation down…

If it’s something I enjoy doing like making art? No.

If it’s something I just want the outcome of, like building furniture? Yes.

Which I realized is basically the difference in whether I would rather make something myself or buy it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So many, but several of my absolute favorites all happened in the same 2-day window years ago. I took a semester off college and traveled around the US. I rode the Empire Builder train from Chicago to Seattle, a 2-day trip.

The first was a deaf man who took that trip multiple times a year. He knew the train didn’t have enough outlets for everyone, so he brought a power strip to share with everyone and he’d monitor devices and return them when they were full battery. He and I ‘talked’ for quite a while by passing notes on his phone back and forth.

The next is the one that came to mind first for this question. I was traveling on a budget, and I have a low appetite any way, so I bought snack bars and things for the train so I could save money over the train’s food. At one point, a woman offered me a granola bar out of the blue and I turned her down but didn’t think much of it.

Half a day later, she and her partner were preparing to get off at the next stop. Her partner walked up to me and said, and I quote, “Now I know it’s none of my damn business, but do you have supple money?” It took me a moment to process what he was asking, and I told him I did. He insisted again. I ultimately didn’t take any from him, but what I realized was that the two of them had been watching this young woman, traveling alone, never getting up to go buy food for almost two days straight. They thought I wasn’t eating and offered me food and money. Total strangers. It makes me tear up thinking about them and their kindness.

The last was a young man, closer to my age who got on the train with a full on double bass. He was heading out west with plans to busk his way down the coast. He and I chatted for the last couple hours of the trip, sharing music from his MP3 player. It was an enjoyable bond that lasted only for the moment, as we didn’t exchange contact info or have any other way to connect again.

I still think about those people, and I’ll always remember that trip as one of my favorites because of those strangers.

My dad has always been on the right and he’s a Trump voter, but he’s mostly avoided going full MAGA-proud. We have always had a tense relationship when it comes to politics and at times had very little personal relationship. Now we just avoid political discussions or keep them very high level, and it’s manageable. I talk to him a lot less than I would if he didn’t have those views. His health is declining significantly at this point so I have decided it’s not worth trying to change his mind.

My mom is still with him and she’s leftist and we talk all the time.

My dad’s two sisters are deep into MAGA (they were proud attendees of Trump’s first inauguration). They’ve been far-right fundamentalist Christians most, if not all, of my life, so I already had a strained relationship with them before 2016. I haven’t even tried in over a decade now. I was recently diagnosed with a chronic disease that one of them also has and I kept thinking about reaching out but ultimately decided I don’t even want her in my life for that so I haven’t bothered.

Worth noting since “sugar-free” sometimes means “sugar substitute” in marketing parlance: some peanut butters use xylitol as a sweetener, and xylitol kills dogs.

So yeah, read the label. Some peanut butters have literally just peanuts as an ingredient and those are best!