How do you know if your arthritis medications are working?

If you have Rheumatoid Arthritis your Rheumatologist will prescribe medications called disease modifying drus.  In Dubai about 70 percent of Rheumatoid arthritis patients are eventually started on methotrexate.  How do we know if these medications are working?  The Rheumatologist should listen to your symptoms, and ask about you pain levels.  She should then do a thorough joint examination and make a note of how many swollen and inflamed joints you have.  A blood test called ESR and CRP is also used to track inflammation.  All these factors are then put into a computerized scoring system to give a DAS28 or disease activity 28 score.  A score < 2.6 means disease remission and < 3.2 means low disease activity.