Rheumatoid arthritis affects people differently. For some people, symptoms last only a few months or a year or two and go away without causing any noticeable damage. Other people have mild or moderate forms of the disease, with periods of worsening symptoms (called flares) and periods in which they feel better (called remissions). Others may have a severe form of rheumatoid arthritis that is active most of the time, lasts for many years or a lifetime, and leads to serious joint damage and disability.

 

Sometimes flares seem to have obvious causes or triggers, but for many people, the flares and remissions seem to occur at random.