--don't worry about starting a pity party--most of us have from time to time; it's practically an institution at these boards.

If I'm understanding you correctly--and tell me if I'm not--it seems as if your inflammatory processes are more rheumatoid at this point than anything else, whacking your bones and joints; have you been on any of the more recent RA meds, or are they contraindicated with the concurrent Sjogren's? (I keep thinking there must be some combo that hasn't been tried yet that does NOT involve bone-attacking steroids, which would probably only make your bone/joint issues worse . . .though you may have been through a lot of them . . .the problem with so many immune-modulators is that they produce their own problems one then has to take compensatory stuff for, and by the time one is taking mutliple substances one doesn't know where the "original" conditions end and the substance-induced ones begin . . . )