100 Different Diseases, Some Symptoms of Arthritis
The Meaning of Arthritis
Arthritis literally means joint inflammation. You also have to understand that arthritis is not a single disease. Arthritis refers to an entire group of diseases.
Today there are many rheumatic diseases and other conditions that are called arthritis. In fact there are over a 100 and all of them will cause pain, stiffness and swelling of the joints.
When one of these conditions damages the joints of the body this is when it is referred to as arthritis. Arthritis effect and disables our seniors and people 65 and older. There are many different forms of arthritis and they each have there own cause.
What is the common theme of arthritis?
The 100 forms of arthritis do have something very much in common. Pain is common, far and away the number one answer. This pain is going to be different for each of the sufferers and where the pain is located is also going to be different.
Warning signs and some symptoms of arthritis
Swelling of your joints and stiffness are some of the signs and symptoms that you may be suffering from arthritis.
Are you feeling stiffness and swelling in one or more of your joints and have you been feeling this for a couple weeks or more? If you answered yes to the above then you need to visit your physician and have these warning signs diagnosed and treated.
There are so many different types of arthritis, and I am not going to list all of them here. This would become quite a long article. What I am going to do is to list a few with the symptoms that go along with each.
Osteoarthritis – what you will find is that the pain is worse at night or after rest. Osteo arthritis is a degenerative joint disease that results from wear and tear. Some of the symptoms of this are:
pain tenderness swelling decreased function
The onset of osteo arthritis is very subtle and gradual, usually involving one or only a few joints. Some of the joints most affected by this are:
knees hips hands spine
Rheumatoid – you are going to feel the most pain during the morning. If this happens in children and/or the elderly then the pain may not be as pronounced. Now sometimes there are going to be cases when certain limbs don’t want to function.
When you are suffering from Rheumatoid arthritis you are suffering from an auto immune disease. What is happening is the body is attacking itself. This can be a chronic and a disabling problem and can cause the following:
Some of these symptoms are similar to other types of arthritis. you can have stiffness pain in the affected joint swelling of the joint you can lose function of the joint
Why rheumatoid arthritis occurs is still not known. Why the body attacks itself is a mystery. Doctors are wondering if this is genetic? It can be hard at first to tell if a person is suffering from rheumatiod arthritis, since it occurs so gradually.
There are many different types of arthritis and I am going to list some of them now. There is rheumatoid, osteoarthritis, gout and pseudogout, septic, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and many more.
Today there are many different ways to treat arthritis depending on the type of arthritis you have. Medications can be prescribed as well as arthroplasty.
When joint pain is so severe that there may come a time when prosthetic joint replacement may become necessary. The people who have had this done are very satisfied with the results.
You have to understand that arthritis has been around for a long time. Arthritis dates back to 4500 B.C.. It was then the first traces were noticed in humans.
Ankle osteoarthritis were found in dinosaurs. Even the native Americans of Tennessee, it was noticed that they suffered from a form of arthritis.
As time and technology advances may be in the future there will be a cure for arthritis. But only time will tell. Right now we try to treat the symptoms of pain and stiffness the best that we can.
There are other treatments besides the couple listed above and I will talk about them in another article.
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