The development of new treatments in recent years has revolutionised the management of inflammatory arthritis.
Nowadays, medical practitioners regard the early stage of inflammatory arthritis as crucial and start use of disease-modifying agents as soon as possible, says consultant rheumatologist at St James's Hospital, Dr Gaye Cunnane.
Methotrexate is the most commonly used disease-modifying drug. Steroids are useful, often in short courses or as one-off intramuscular injections if the patient is particularly symptomatic.
A new treatment using biological agents works in a different way to other disease-modifying drugs and has been available only in the past few years.
This treatment has "revolutionised" the management of inflammatory arthritis because the biologic agents work rapidly and are usually very effective, says Cunnane.
While other treatments may take months to work, biological agent treatments work within days or weeks and the results can be dramatic. In some instances, patients feel like going out dancing after years of pain and they report that it reminds them of how they were before the condition appeared, Cunnane says.