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A lot of people think of rheumatologists as treating old-age arthritis, but actually,
surprisingly, a lot of our patients are very young to middle-age individuals who have diseases
such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, vasculitis — as well as we treat older patients who
end up getting osteoarthritis.
A lot of the conservative approaches actually don’t even require medication. So a lot
of it may be physical therapy or other lifestyle changes that they can make to help their disease.
And I think some patients actually prefer to do many of those things first. They can
start from very conservative approaches to then more aggressive approaches, including
a whole host of medications.
I think that not only have the new medications that have come out over the last ten years
made my life easier because I have more to offer my patients, but they’ve also helped
alleviate a lot of the concerns that patients have because we have a lot more options in
terms of treating their diseases.