RA Support Center

Living with RA since 2001
Taking Rituxan since 2006

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Is Your RA Treatment Losing Steam?

In clinical trials, as many as 29% to 50% of patients had an inadequate response to anti-TNF therapy.*

While your current treatment may provide some relief from your rheumatoid arthritis (RA) symptoms, it's important to remember that other treatment options may suit you better. If you're currently on an anti-TNF therapy and you have noticed any of the following, you may want to ask your doctor about trying a different therapy:

• Continued swollen or painful joints, fatigue, or stiffness
• A need to increase the amount of medicine you take to keep up with symptoms
• A need to take your medicine more often to control symptoms
• A need to add other medications to your current therapy to control symptoms
• Anti-TNF worked at first, but the effects didn't last
• Troublesome, continuing side effects from anti-TNF therapy

For instance, B-cell therapy is specifically intended to reduce the signs and symptoms of RA for people who have not had good disease control with anti-TNF therapies. In fact, 1 course of treatment (2 infusions) with a B-cell medication provides lasting improvement in pain and symptoms through 6 months. Rituxan also protects joints by slowing the damage of RA.

Your Time to RISE™

For more information about RA, including email updates about the latest treatment strategies, enroll in RISE, an RA education and support network.

Keeping Up with a Chronic Disease

A medication that works for you at first may become less effective over time at relieving your RA symptoms, either due to the progression of your disease or your body's gradual development of a resistance to the drug.

If you think a different treatment might help you, it's important to talk to your doctor about the options available to treat your RA. Keep in mind there are a lot of important factors to understand and consider when choosing a treatment, including potential benefits, risks and side effects.

*Kremer 2006. Weinblatt 1999. Maini 1999. Weinblatt 2003. Keystone 2004.