Arthritis

Arthritis is a common disorder that affects your joints and can cause pain, swelling, and stiffness, making it difficult to move or stay active. Arthritis isn’t a single condition. There are several different types. It usually involves inflammation or degeneration (breakdown) of your joints. It can affect people of all ages – even children and teenagers.

If you have pain in or around one or more than one joint that doesn’t go away after a few days, you should see a doctor.

What is a joint?

A joint is where two or more bones meet, such as in the fingers, knees, and shoulders. Joints hold bones in place and allow them to move freely within limits.

Joints get cushioned and supported by soft tissues that prevent your bones from rubbing against each other. A connective tissue called articular cartilage plays a key role. It helps your joints move smoothly without friction or pain.

Types of Arthritis

There are several types of arthritis. There are some similarities between these conditions, but also some key differences.

• Osteoarthritis, or “wear and tear” arthritis, develops when joint cartilage breaks down from repeated stress. It’s the most common form of arthritis.
• Ankylosing spondylitis, also called arthritis of the spine. It causes pain and swelling, mainly around the joints of the spine.
• Juvenile arthritis (JA), If someone is diagnosed with inflammatory arthritis before their sixteenth birthday, it’s called juvenile idiopathic arthritis, where the immune system attacks the tissue around joints.
• Gout, a disease that causes hard crystals of uric acid to form in your joints. Joints affected by gout can become red and hot. The skin may also look shiny and can peel.
• Psoriatic arthritis, joint inflammation that develops in people with psoriasis (an auto-immune disorder that causes skin irritation).
• Rheumatoid Arthritis is a type of inflammatory arthritis. It is what is known as an auto-immune condition. It most commonly starts among people between the ages of 40 and 60. It’s more common in women than men.

While it can be difficult to tell if your joint pain is caused by arthritis or not, certain symptoms usually indicate that you should see a doctor. The four key signs include:

• Pain from arthritis can be constant or it may come and go. It may occur at rest or while moving. Various parts of the body can be affected by pain.
• Swelling: Symptoms of some types of arthritis include redness, swelling, and heat around the affected joint. If swelling lasts more than three days or occurs more than three times a month, it should be treated by a doctor.
• Stiffness: When you wake up in the morning or sit at a desk or ride in the car for a long time, this is a classic arthritis symptom. Morning stiffness that lasts longer than an hour is a good reason to suspect arthritis.
• Difficulty in mobility: Being unable to get up from your favorite chair, or sitting in a single position for a long time, could be a sign of arthritis.

Lab tests are a complete analysis of your whole body. Blood tests are done:

• To diagnose any kind of symptoms.
• To find out how well our organs are working.
• It can monitor chronic health conditions and diseases and find out problems in their early stages.

To Diagnose and monitor arthritis some of the following tests are :

• Complete Blood Count
• Uric acid
• Anti ccp
• Rheumatoid factor
• Erythrocyte-sedimentation-rate (ESR)
• C-reactive protein (CRP) test
• Anti nuclear antibody (ANA)

Arthritis has different types and causes. The most common types are:

• Osteoarthritis starts with the roughening of cartilage. If this occurs, the body can put in place a ‘repair’ process trying to make up for the loss of the substances.
  The following can then happen:
  Tiny bits of extra bone, called osteophytes, can grow at the ends of a bone within a joint. There can be an increase in the amount of thick fluid inside the joint. The joint capsule can stretch, and the joint may lose its shape. Sometimes, the early stages of osteoarthritis can happen without causing much pain or trouble. However, it can lead to damage inside a joint, causing pain and stiffness.
  Osteoarthritis is more common in women and usually affects people aged 45 and above. The parts of the body most commonly affected are the knees, hands, hips, and back.
• Rheumatoid Arthritis is a type of inflammatory arthritis. It is what is known as an auto-immune condition. The immune system is the body’s natural self-defense system, which protects us from infections and illness. When someone has an auto-immune condition, the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s healthy tissues, such as the joints, causing inflammation.
• Gout is caused by having too much uric acid in the body. We all have a certain amount of urate in our bodies. However, being overweight or eating and drinking too much of certain types of food and alcoholic drinks can cause some people to have more uric acid in their bodies. The genes you inherit can make you more likely to develop gout. If it reaches a high level, urate can form crystals that remain in and around the joint. They can be there for a while without causing any problems and even without the person realizing they are there. A knock on the body or a fever can lead to crystals falling into the soft part of the joint. It will cause pain and swelling.
• Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis There are different types of JIA. They are auto-immune conditions, genetics (the disease may be inherited), infection, and environmental factors that may influence the immune system, alone or in combination.
• Ankylosing Apondylitis is a type of spondyloarthritis. It causes pain and swelling, mainly around the joints of the spine. As a result of inflammation around the spine, the body can create more of the mineral calcium used by the body to increase bone Strength. However, in ankylosing spondylitis, the extra calcium can make new bits of bone growth in the spine, and this will cause pain and stiffness.
• Psoriatic Arthritisis an auto-immune condition. It is also a type of spondyloarthritis. The body’s immune system can cause painful swelling and stiffness within and around joints, with a red scaly skin rash called psoriasis. It can affect several places in the body, including the elbows, knees, back, buttocks, and scalp.
• Reactive Arthritis is pain or swelling in a joint caused by an infection in your body. The person feels extremely tired and has painful, swollen joints.
• Septic Arthritis is also known as infectious arthritis caused by bacteria, viruses, or fungus. The joint could be swollen, red, and warm, and you might have a fever.

Risk factors for arthritis include:

• Family history: Having parents or siblings with arthritis may increase your chances of developing arthritis.
• Age: The risk of many types of arthritis — including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and gout — increases with age.
• Your sex: Rheumatoid arthritis tends to affect more women than men, whereas gout, another form of arthritis, tends to affect more men.
• Previous joint injury: It is more likely that people who have injured a joint, perhaps while playing a sport, will develop arthritis there in the future.
• Obesity: Having excess weight puts stress on your joints, especially your knees, hips, and spine. People with obesity have a higher risk of developing arthritis.

Medications

• Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were good at treating pain and inflammation and decreasing joint damage. Some examples of drugs are ibuprofen, aspirin, and naproxen.
• Steroids quickly improve Arthritis symptoms such as pain and stiffness and decrease joint swelling and tenderness. Additionally, these drugs improve the range of motion by reducing symptoms. Steroids like prednisolone, betamethasone, and dexamethasone reduce redness and swelling (inflammation).
• Pain, swelling, and inflammation can be treated by disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, especially in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Commonly used conventional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs include methotrexate, leflunomide, hydroxychloroquine, and sulfasalazine.

Surgery

• A synovectomy, which removes the damaged synovial fluid that causes arthritis, is also recommended when the synovium is severely inflamed.
• A joint replacement procedure involves removing damaged or arthritic joints and replacing them with metal, plastic, or ceramic devices called prostheses.

Physiotherapy

Physiotherapy is suggested to keep joints supple and flexible. Strengthening the muscles around an affected joint can prevent further damage. Among the options are stretching exercises, which provide a range of motion, and low-impact aerobics like walking and cycling.