Rheumatoid Arthritis: Causes, Treatments, and How to Achieve Remission

When your body turns on itself, attacking the lining of your joints, that’s rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic autoimmune disease where the immune system mistakenly targets healthy joint tissue, causing pain, swelling, and long-term damage. Also known as RA, it doesn’t just hurt—it can wear down cartilage, warp bones, and even affect your heart, lungs, and eyes. Unlike regular joint wear and tear, RA flares up without warning, often starting in small joints like fingers and wrists before spreading.

What makes RA different from other types of arthritis is how it’s managed. It’s not about resting and popping ibuprofen. The goal isn’t just to ease pain—it’s to reach remission, a state where disease activity drops to near-zero, stopping joint damage before it starts. And that’s where treat-to-target, a structured approach using objective measurements to guide treatment decisions comes in. Doctors don’t guess anymore. They use tools like DAS28, a scoring system that tracks joint swelling, pain levels, and blood markers to measure disease activity to see if your meds are working—or if you need to switch.

Most people with RA start with basic drugs like methotrexate, but if those don’t cut it, biologic DMARDs, targeted therapies that block specific parts of the immune system driving inflammation step in. These aren’t old-school pills—they’re injections or infusions that can stop RA in its tracks. But they’re not magic. They need to be paired with regular monitoring. Skipping checkups or ignoring symptoms? That’s how damage builds silently.

You might hear RA is "incurable," but that’s not the full story. With the right strategy, many people live without flares, without pain, without disability. It’s not about hoping it gets better—it’s about measuring progress, adjusting fast, and staying ahead of the disease. The posts below show exactly how that works: real data from clinical trials, how doctors use DAS28 scores to make decisions, what biologics actually do inside your body, and why some people stay in remission for years while others don’t. No fluff. Just what you need to know to talk to your doctor and take control.