Thanks Sam. And SAR01, no I didn't and niether did my mother. BTW the grandmother in this case is DH's mother.

My mother had rheumatoid arthritus that showed up suddenly in her early fifties. She had never been sick a day in her life, until one day she couldn't get up out of bed. Since RA has a genetic component, they tried to find someone in the family who had had it, but couldn't -- other than one cousin who was my mother's age.

As it happens, she and her cousin used to play together as children in an old barn. My mother always thought that it was an amazing coincidence that the only people in the entire family with RA were the two of them. She wondered if she and her cousin had been exposed to some chemical or toxic substance as children, in other words. Again, this is a case of looking at the possibility of a reaction to substances, rather than just treating the symptoms alone. :flower