Arthritis Meaning?

Joint inflammation is what arthritis means. Arthritis encompasses a wide variety of diseases and is not a single disease.

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.

Some of these conditions will actually damaged the joints of the body. When this happens this is often referred to as arthritis. This happens to be the leading cause for disability of our elderly population, as well as those of age 65 and greater. Now with arthritis, there are many different forms and each of these forms will have its own cause.

What do they have in common, 100 different diseases

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.

Some symptoms of arthritis to warn you of possible problems

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.

I am not going to go into all of the different types of arthritis and their symptoms. What I am going to do is list a few for you, and I will do another article that will list many others. So here are a few types of arthritis and the symptoms that are associated with them.

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:

decreased function in the affected joint tenderness to the touch pain in the affected area swelling around the joint where pain is being felt

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:

stiffness joint pain swelling loss of joint function

The cause of rheumatoid arthritis remains elusive. Doctors believe that there could be something genetic involved with this. Rheumatoid arthritis in the beginning stages can be difficult to diagnose because again this is gradual and has subtle symptoms.

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.

With the technology today and the advances in medicine, treating arthritis symptoms have become many. Drugs, either over the counter or stronger drugs prescribed by your doctor is one way and then there is also arthroplasty. This is just a couple ways to treat the symptoms.

As a last resort and when the pain becomes so severe that prosthetic joint replacement may be the answer to the problem. Other treatments have failed and surgery is now necessary. Patient’s are quite satisfied of the results of joint replacement. I know of a friend who had a new hip put in and he is back out playing golf like nothing happened to him. You would never know he had this done and he is so grateful that he did.

Arthritis has been around a long time. The first traces of arthritis dates back to 4500 B.C.

Ankle osteoarthritis were found in dinosaurs. Even the native Americans of Tennessee, it was noticed that they suffered from a form of 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 treatments besides the couple listed above and I will talk about them in another article.

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