The real problem comes when you think the way you are feeling now is just not good enough. Making this decision is tough. With a chronic disease you get used to feeling less than wonderful most of the time and you may not even realize that "better" is achievable.
It's a gamble. Do you hold the cards you have and stay with the status quo, or take a risk that a new (to you) medication will improve your life? If you can manage to go to work every day, but have no energy at all once you get home can you live with that?
Here's an abstract from a poster that was presented at the American College of Rheumatology meeting this year. It's called "Understanding The Preference to Stay With the Status Quo". It seems that the positive emotion of hopefulness has a large part to play.
To me hopefulness and optimism go together. Could this mean that optimists change drugs more readily? Are they more receptive to the current "Treat To Target" strategy?
For more about the push for treating to target here's another link to a paper by many leading rheumatologists.
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