Preparing for an RA Treatment Change

Transcript

Music track throughout

DR. JAIN: I think it’s extremely common for patients to be worried about making a change in treatment, that they’re going to get back all the way to square one.

And that’s a fear that we’re going to tackle together.

It’s important to remember that there are some real risks to under-controlling their condition.

One of the risks to having uncontrolled or under-controlled disease is irreversible joint damage, and a loss of functional ability over time.

I’ll tell patients, “I care about your day-to-day pain, but I really care just as much at long-term functional ability.

Are you gonna be able to dance at your kid’s wedding?”

That long-term functional preservation and preventing irreversible joint damage is just really important.

Change is hard, and change can often be scary.

But even though that change can seem a little bit scary, if we think that that’s the best route to our end goal, change is often what we need.