100 Different Diseases, Some Symptoms of Arthritis
The Meaning of Arthritis
Joint inflammation is what arthritis means. Arthritis encompasses a wide variety of diseases and is not a single disease.
There are more than 100 rheumatic diseases and other conditions, that can cause pain, stiffness in the body and also 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.
What are some of the warning signs for 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 - this disease happens to be a degenerative joint disease. You are going to feel the worst pain at night time or after rest. This happens from wear and tear on the body, but there are other reasons. Here are some symptoms of osteo arthritis:
pain tenderness swelling decreased function
Osteo arthritis is gradual and subtle during the onset. It will involve one or more joints and some of those joints are:
spine area your hands hips become sore hard on the knees
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.
Rhuematoid arthritis can be a potentially disabling disease. The body is attacking isself. This is how Rhuematoid arthritis is an auto immune disease. Problems can be:
Rheumatoid arthritis symptoms are similar to the other types of arthritis you can possibly lose function of a joint there is going to be pain in the joint swelling will be evident the joint will become stiff
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.
Some of the other types of arthritis and by no means is this a complete list are the following. Gout and pseudogout, you have septic, as mentioned rheumatiod arthritis and don’t forget juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and also mentioned osteoarthritis, bursitis and there are many others that have not been mentioned.
The advances in medicine today have made treating the different types of arthritis many. You can use medicine prescribed by your doctor or even over the counter drugs and also arthroplasty and this is only a couple of ways to treat arthritis symptoms.
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.
Arthritis has been around a long time. The first traces of arthritis dates back to 4500 B.C.
Dinosaurs have even had evidence to have had ankle osteoarthritis. The skeletal remains of Native Americans of Tennessee were noticed to have arthritis.
Today all we can do is to treat the pain and stiffness that is associated with the symptoms of arthritis. Maybe in the future as studies continue on this disease, a cure may come. But for now all we can do is to treat the symptoms.
There are other ways to treat arthritis, other than the couple of ways that were mentioned in this article. I will write another one detailing some of the other methods that are available.