I just recently went through this...Well, I'm in the recovery phase now. I had a mid-foot fusion in February.
The best advise is to make sure your rheumy and surgeon communicate with each other. For me, the surgeon wanted me off all my meds, including anti-inflammatories and only 1 week of prescription pain meds and only acetaminophen after that during 8 weeks of recovery. His mantra was "inflamation is our friend". My Rheumy, told him otherwise. She adjusted my time med free to 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after for infection control, and told him I should be able to start up one of my medications and still have enough of an inflammation response to grow new bone.
Four weeks off my meds was enough to set my RA flaring, but starting back on one med. dialed it back enough that I am now sitting at a 3 or 4 pain level. I just started back on my second medication and looking forward to more improvement. I can't imagine still being med. free. I have an appointment with the Rheum soon. I think it will take a round of predisone to get back to normal.
It helped my to know that it was only for a limited amount of time and that soon I would be back to normal...or better once my foot heals and is pain free.
I hope your surgery goes well.
Merry