Antibiotics

• Rheumatoid arthritis was treated for the first time with an antibiotic therapy by Dr. Thomas McPherson Brown sometime in the 1940s. Dr. Brown began treating RA with antibiotic therapy after claiming to have discovered bacteria in the sample of fluid withdrawn from a patient's joint. However, that was never proven and doctor's discontinued using antibiotics as a treatment for RA until 1995. In 1995, the Arthritis Foundation reports that more tests were conducted and in some cases, for some individuals, antibiotic therapy does help to alleviate the symptoms of RA. Still, the decision to resort to an antibiotic treatment for RA depends largely on the individual and the physician devising a plan that is best for each individual patient.
  
  

Types

• The Road Back Foundation reports that different types of antibiotics seem to have an affect on symptoms of RA, but that these affects largely depend on each unique individual. Types of antibiotics that have been reported to have been used to treat RA effectively include minocycline and tetracyclines. Antibiotics such as erythromycin and lincomycin have also shown themselves to be effective against combating the symptoms of RA in certain circumstances. All antibiotics can be delivered one of three ways, or in a combination therapy. The antibiotic can either be administered orally, intravenously, or through injections.
  
  

How Antibiotics Work

• Antibiotics work by attacking the invasive bacteria in most conditions and ridding the body of it before it can spread to other places. In the case of RA, which is caused by production of mycoplasma, the antibiotic attacks the plasma and keeps it from producing within the body. The reduction in this plasma helps with some of the painful symptoms of RA. After the first treatment, patients may complain that their symptoms have become worse since beginning treatment rather than better. This is something that is a common complaint for all new antibiotic users in the fight against RA. The pain associated with the first couple of antibiotics doses issued is normal, but you must not dwell upon the increased side effects before seeing if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.