How to treat rheumatoid arthritis?

  1. General treatment: appropriate rest, exercise and physiotherapy.  2.Pharmacological treatment: (1) First-line drugs: including salicylic acid and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Salicylic acid class representative drug is aspirin, small dose (2g/d), mainly pain relief, increase the dose (4-6g/d) to have anti-inflammatory effect. Other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs include ibuprofen, Isidin, etc.  (2) Second-line drugs: including disease-modifying drugs and cytotoxic drugs, the former include antimalarials, gold preparations, penicillamine, etc.; the latter include methotrexate, cyclophosphamide, etc.  (3) Third-line drugs, glucocorticoids, are often used when second-line drugs are not yet effective, and once the latter takes effect, the dose of glucocorticoids is reduced and gradually withdrawn.  3.Injection therapy and small needle knife therapy: for patients with heavy synovial inflammation but not many affected joints, affecting joint activities, anti-inflammatory analgesic solution can be applied to the joint cavity and painful points around the joint injection therapy; and according to the condition of the application of small needle knife to separate the adhesions around the joint tissue.  4.Surgical treatment.