Swollen, painful joints and difficulty moving may indicate rheumatoid arthritis, but doctors must use tests to diagnose it. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is chronic, meaning once a person has it, it is going to affect him or her for the rest of his or her life. RA is a disease that does not have a cure.
Causes of Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis is one of many kinds of arthritis. It is different from other kinds of arthritis in many ways. For one, it is symmetrical. That means, if one knee has hreumatoid arthritis, then the other will, too.
It’s also a condition in which a person’s own immune system attacks the body. That’s known as an auto-immune disorder. Scientists are still not sure why this happens. Some people might have the genes that cause it, but never get the disease. Women get this disease more often than men, and they may get it soon after a pregnancy.
Sometimes treatment for some other disease can cause rheumatoid arthritis. Also, other kinds of arthritis can cause it.
Symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis
Symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis include stiffness and pain in the joints, caused by swelling. The pain usually gets worse after sleeping or resting. The disease is systemic, which means that it is all over a person’s body. Rheumatoid arthritis can also cause a fever and anemia.
Nodules, about the size of small peas, may also appear. They are not painful. They can occur in anywhere on the body, but usually develop near elbow or ankle joints and behind the head.
Although RA mostly strikes adults from 25 to 50 years of age, there is also a juvenile form of it that children below sixteen years of age can get. Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis lasts for about six weeks or more.
Identifying RA by Tests
Doctors make a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis with the help of tests. The latex test is one of the most common. It’s useful in the early stages of the disease, and can help confirm the diagnosis. When rheumatoid arthritis begins to develop, the body’s immune system makes an antibody known as the rheumatoid factor, which goes into the bloodstream. The latex test helps doctors to know if a person has the disease by checking if the person tests positive or negative for this antibody. For this test, tiny latex beads are put into the person’s blood. If they stick together, this shows that the person has the antibody in their blood. Although all patients do not have this antibody in their blood in the early stages of this disease, the density of the rumatoid factor goes up at a very high rate as the disease gets worse.
Another regular test that doctors use to determine whether a patient has rheumatoid arthritis is the sedimentation rate test (Sed Rate). In this test, the doctor takes blood and keeps it in a test tube. When blood stops and is in a certain position, it starts to settle at the bottom. This is sedimentation. The doctors check the rate at which sedimentation occurs in the blood from the patient. If the speed is high, this shows that the person has rheumatoid arthritis. The patient should repeat this test from time to time. If the rate of sedimentation goes up, this shows that the person’s rheumatic condition is getting worse. If the rate is lower, this shows that the person is getting better.
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is like rheumatoid arthritis. It is another kind of arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis covers the whole body, but osteoarthritis affects only some parts of the body. Another major difference between the two diseases is that rheumatoid arthritis does not affect the joints in the hands that are nearest to the fingernails, but osteoarthritis does.
What Is It Like to Have RA?
Only those who have rheumatoid arthritis know what it is like to live with it. Doctors and others who study it have found that having it increases a person’s chances of having silent heart attacks. In a silent heart attack, there is usually no outer sign that the person is having a heart attack.
Patients with rheumatoid arthritis should not perform repetitive movements, like typing, chopping or shoveling. They should also not carry heavy things. Some patients with very bad symptoms may need a cane to help them to walk. They may also have to use supports like handles at the edge of the bathtub to help them in and out.
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