Addressing Arthritis: Types, Symptoms, and Treatment

From bignewsnetwork.com

Arthritis is a broad term used to describe more than 100 conditions affecting your joints, tissues connecting and surrounding it. The joint is where two of your bones meet, like your knees, wrist, hips, knuckles, and ankles. When you have arthritis, you feel inflammation in your joints which causes pain and discomfort.

What Are the Types of Arthritis?

These are the most common types of arthritis:

• Osteoarthritis

A degenerative joint disease, commonly known as 'wear and tear' arthritis, affects the protective cartilage of your bones. It usually happens with growing age; however, it can also be due to obesity and other joint-related injuries. The most common body parts that suffer from this are the spine, feet, hips, knees, etc.

Osteoarthritis is the reason behind swelling, pain, and stiffness in the body. In some major cases, some people suffer reduced functionality and inability to perform daily tasks.

• Ankylosing Spondylitis

Due to ankylosing spondylitis, the bones in the spine become less flexible, resulting in a hunching position.

This condition is seen more in men compared to women. The signs may include stiffness and pain in the hips and lower back during the morning or hours of inactivity. Fatigue and neck pain are common. The symptoms may worsen, get better, or occur at regular intervals.

• Gout

An inflammatory form of arthritis, gout affects one or more joints - most commonly your big toe. You experience severe pain, redness, swelling, and tenderness when you suffer from this condition.

Once the pain kicks in, it prolongs for four to twelve hours. Even after it subsides, some discomfort may last for a few days or weeks. As gout increases with time, you suffer from a limited range of motion and won't be able to move your joints normally.

• Psoriatic Arthritis

Psoriatic arthritis mostly affects people who have psoriasis. Psoriasis is a skin disease that causes red patches with silvery scales on the patient's skin. For some people, psoriatic arthritis occurs years after developing psoriasis, and for some, the joint problem appears before skin patches can be seen.

Symptoms of this condition include joint stiffness, pain, and swelling. It can affect your spine and fingertips, and the pain can range from mild to severe.

• Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease that affects your joints and damages your body, including the heart, skin, lungs, and blood vessels.

Your immune system accidentally attacks your healthy body cells, which causes painful swelling and inflammation, most commonly on the knees, wrists, and hands. The damage can cause instability, chronic pain, and deformity.

How to Diagnose Arthritis?

If you have been noticing symptoms of arthritis, you should see a doctor. Usually, they will diagnose arthritis through your medical history, X-rays, physical examination, and blood tests. The healthcare professional will check your joints for warmth, redness, and swelling.

The most common procedures followed to assess arthritis are:

• Laboratory Tests

During laboratory tests, your body fluids like blood, joint fluid, and urine are analysed to point out what type of arthritis you have. To get the samples, the lab professional will numb the area before inserting a needle.

• Imaging

Imaging includes tests that uncover the reason behind your symptoms. It includes:

• Computerized Tomography (CT): CT scans from different angles take views of your internal structures to visualize the bone and its surrounding tissues.
• Ultrasound: With the help of high-frequency sound waves, your soft tissues, fluid-containing structures, and cartilage around joints are imaged. It's also used to guide needles to remove fluid and inject medications.
• X-Ray: X-rays can catch bone damage, spurs, or cartilage loss. You may not detect early arthritis with this method, but you can use them to track the progression of your ongoing condition.
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): This method combines magnetic field with radio waves to produce images of ligaments, tendons, and cartilage.

How to Treat Arthritis?

Treating arthritis focus on relieving pain and improving the functionality of your joints. The following are the ways to treat arthritis.

• Medications

The medication depend on the type of arthritis you have. Usually, pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory medicines are prescribed. Rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis can be controlled with biologics that target your immune system's inflammatory response.

• Therapy

Physical therapy is great for improving strength, mobility, and motion. Moreover, physical therapists can even help you live a life and adjust your daily activities to decrease arthritic pain.

Apart from therapy, in some cases, people who suffer from excruciating pain in their hands have felt relief after using copper compression gloves. They help you manage your arthritis symptoms.

• Manage Weight

Losing and maintaining weight is extremely important for arthritis patients. People who are obese need to take extreme care and lose weight to reduce stress on their joints, particularly the knees and hips.

• Surgery

If any of the above methods do not help you upright, there's always the last resort of performing surgeries like:

• Joint Replacement: In this procedure, damaged joints are removed and replaced with new ones. This surgery is mostly performed on the knees and hips.
• Joint Repair: In some arthritis cases, the surface of your joints can be realigned or smoothened through small incisions to improve functionality and reduce pain.
• Joint Fusion: Here, the ends of two bone joints are removed and locked till they are healed and formed into one. Mostly smaller joints like fingers, ankles, and wrists are treated with this surgery.

When to Visit a Doctor?

Your joints can get swollen or sore for many reasons. Sometimes it's due to a small injury or performing an unfamiliar physical activity. There's no need to worry and rush to the doctor every now and then.

However, if the stiffness and pain persist for long, causing warmth, redness, and swelling with no clear reasoning, it's important to consult a doctor and get the treatment started.

Final Thoughts

The quality of life is majorly affected for people suffering from arthritis. If left untreated, arthritis can be a reason behind immobility and life-long inconvenience, which can lead to problems in sleeping peacefully, fatigue, anxiety, and depression.

Moreover, the physical pain caused by arthritis can hinder your daily physical activities, making you socially isolated, lose independence, and reduce body functionality. Hence, it's extremely necessary to get diagnosed early if you're suffering from signs and start your treatment for recovery!

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