I have (had?) a autoimmune arthritis that is pretty miserable. It's called Ankylosing Spondylitis. Anyway, getting off grains (gluten in particular) and dairy really improved the symptoms. I was also low carb at the time it was diagnosed but not gluten free.

Basically in me it was a mild presentation, in severe cases it can turn your spine into a rock. Scared the hell out of me seeing pictures of people frozen by it. My main symptom was that any and all joints could hurt even my ribs. Sometimes it hurt even to breathe.

Oh another thing you should look into is vitamin D deficiency.

Here's a good place to read up on it: http://vitamindcouncil.org

I also recently started taking a tsp of cod liver oil and a tablespoon of Carlson's Fish oil daily and that seems to have helped a lot! So maybe I was deficient in vit. A too. I heard that there's a gene in people of English derivation that causes vit. A deficiency fairly frequently. But it is important also not to take too much.

Steroids are awful things, very hard on the body. I hope you can get off them.