What we may brush off as a minor ailment or avoid with a pain killer might be symptoms of arthritis. Arthritis is a common disease affecting the joints, skin and various internal organs irrespective of the age of the person.
The first known traces of arthritis date as far back as 4500 BC! However, the disease got its current name, ‘arthritis,’ from the Greek word ‘arthron’ meaning ‘joint,’ in 1859.
While more than 100 formsof arthritis are identified (technically nearly 200), the most common ones are rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Arthritis can cause problems to bones, eyes, chest or skin.
Common Symptoms of Arthritis
Inability to move the joint freely
Joint pain, whether at rest or moving
Joint stiffness
Joint swelling
Pain in areas around joints: hips, knees, spine, and hands
Inability to move limbs as much as you used to
Joint tenderness
Joint pains with fever, fatigue, rash, or nodules
Diagnosing Arthritis
There are many differences in types of arthritis, so it may not be easy to conclude the painful condition—even in joints or joint attached muscles—is arthritis. Because there are so many types of arthritis, of course there is no single test to diagnose it. Many doctors use a combination of the following to interpret symptoms:
There are many forms of arthritis.Some are related to wear and tear while some are due to an over-active immune system. Every type of arthritis has its own characteristic symptoms. There is no standard root test to identify and no standard medicine or cure for all kinds of arthritis. Let us review some of the common types.
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is the most common form of srthritis that usually comes with age. It often affects the fingers, knees, hips and facet joints in the spine. Osteoarthritis may also follow an injury to a joint, often after many years. Cartilage—a type of dense connective tissue composed of cells dispersed in a firm gel-like substance—that
cushions the points where two or more bones join together—may become degraded. That results in pain and limited movement.
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Our body’s immune system is our defense against disease. When it fails, it attacks the body it is designed to protect. Attacks cause joint linings to swell. Inflammation may spread to the surrounding tissues, damaging both cartilage and bones. This is rheumatoid arthritis.
It can begin in any joint; though, generally it starts in the smaller joints of the fingers, hands and wrists. It is characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis to be reflexive; that is, if a certain joint hurts on the left hand, the same joint will hurt on the right hand. This symmetry distinguishes rheumatoid athritis from other forms of the disease.
Other common symptoms are muscle pain, stiffness, fatigue, weakness, flu-like signs, rheumatoid nodules, or lumps of tissue under the skin or on the elbows.The person may also experience loss of appetite, anemia, depression, weight loss, and sweaty hands and feet.
Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis
Artritis does not spare children. Some times what is brushed off as ‘growing pains’ may actually be the indication of juvenile arthritis. The child may complain, but more often you will have to observe signs, of joint pain and redness (inflammation), stiffness, swelling, and loss of function of the joints. This could indicate juvenile arthritis. Juvenile arthritus signs and symptoms vary from child to child. Sometimes the same child may experience different symptoms on different days.
Gouty Arthritis
Our bodies normally dispose of excess uric acid in urine. Unexcreted uric acid can pool in blood and tissues and cause needle-like uric acid crystals to accumulate around the small joints. Rub the balls of your feet and the base of your toes really hard. Do you feel graininess? This is uric acid crystal build up.
When pain strikes out of the blue, it might be gouty arthritis. Typically it involves the big toe; but other joints like ankle, knee, wrist, elbow and fingers may be affected. The first symptom is generally acute pain (sharp, short-termed) followed with inflamed joints, resulting in feet (or whatever part) becoming swollen and extremely sensitive to the touch. You may feel intense pain even by simply putting on socks!Men are most susceptible to gout.
Lupus
Have you met young people with lupus or chronic fatigue syndrome whom you would have never thought of as arthritic?
B cells are produced through several stages. They mature in the bone marrow. B cells make proteins called antibodies and react against invading bacteria or viruses. The
antibodies react with antigens.The person with lupus makes auto-antibodies that react with self-antigens to make immune complexes, which then travel through the blood stream. These immune complexes are deposited anywhere that bloodstream takes them, resulting in
inflammatory skin, hair and scalp or joints.
Even the internal organs like the kidney, heart or brain, can become sick with lupus. Unlike gout which mostly affects men, women are ten times more susceptible to lupus. Common symptoms are rash over the cheeks and across the bridge of the nose, and disc-shaped sores on the face, neck or chest. Other problems could be sensitivity to sun and kidney problems.
More Types of Arthritis
Fatigue, depression, sore neck and jaw, and soreness when chewing food may be due to temporal arteritis.
Hence one needs to consult a doctor or specialist instead of deciding oneself about an appropriate treatment or medication for arthritus.
