Luckily (?) for me my disease was more the slow, grinding, chronic
type than the more aggressive
type. I had my first joint replacement, the left hip in 1997 at age 37, and since then it's been a steady parade of surgical tweaks.
Currently I'm fairly stable (my husband may debate the "stable" part - I'm in menopause!); my two main RA drugs are methotrexate and Enbrel, both by sub-q injection. Also Mobic (meloxicam), an NSAID.