It's best if our disease can be controlled without narcotic pain meds, since they can be addictive and cause us problems. Your pain indicates that the disease is more active than it should be. You may want to talk with your rheumatologist about your med regimen and try lifestyle measures that can significantly help control our disease. In case you want to check out my story, I've written a lot about what we can do to help manage it. Take care, Eureka and Searching!