Just to give you some hope, I may not have made it clear...Mine actually began to get better at the five year mark and after about two more it was gone. Every once in a while I have what might be flare-ups in my hands, hips, and feet, but never the full body deal I had for those years. You can heal. My mom also went through about 5 years of it after my brother talked her into a tetanus shot after a cat bite. We've both gotten better from it. It may have just been time because she certainly does different diets than I do. She benefits more from vegan style diets, while meat based ones have always worked better for me. Experimenting with diets and supplements is always a good idea to me. I have a cool traditional doc now who, though he doesn't like that I refuse a lot of his suggestions, will still talk to me and discuss research and order me blood tests. He even "diagnosed" me with some strange mystery disease so that my insurance will cover any bloodwork he orders. I just tell him what I want. Currently, I'm working on getting my thyroid antibodies down and after my next round of blood tests, I'm going to experiment with A1C. I used to be able to get my own blood tests, but the local lab broke their website during covid and refuses to fix it. Trying in person to order labs is wild. "Why you need that? Where's your doctor's papers????" "You don't need to know and AZ has a law saying I can order these." "Well your insurance won't cover it." "I KNOW. It is why I am not handing you an insurance card." and on and on until finally they give in. It's not fun to do every 3 months, so having a "doctor's papers" works best. I find things that work for me based on my bloodwork and how I feel. My doc was shocked at how I could tell him what my TSH (thyroid) would be just based on how I feel. I can usually guess within .5 points. So he lets me pick my own dosage of thyroid meds since I can keep my numbers stable - well not lets, you know what I mean, more of doesn't give me crap about it. I will keep you in my thoughts. It's an awful thing to go through. Try to keep your flexibility as much as you can. I'm still not back to what I was before, but I was never particularly flexible, but it does make you just want to curl up and not move at all. Don't go strenuous, but keep moving. I never took pain killers for it, so I don't have any suggestions in that department, but honestly, from what I can tell that's about all the RockDocs can give you. My naturepath gave me some stuff for my other autoimmune issues that helped a lot - low dose naltrexone (I take 4.5mg in the mornings), but I don't know if that's recommended for RA. I also take metformin for the anti-inflammatory properties (my current doc is fine with that too, because my fasting glucose is wacky from the thyroid, so he sees me as a type2 or pre-type2 anyway). Again, I'll keep you in my thoughts and if I come across anything in my autoimmune journey that might help, I'll message.