What Is Arthritis?
Many people believe that arthritis is a series of minor aches and pains associated with aging. In fact, arthritis is a family of musculoskeletal disorders with a range of more than 100 different diseases and conditions that can strike people of any age. In fact, two-thirds of the more than 50 million Americans who suffer from arthritis are younger than 65, including 300,000 children, according to the Arthritis Foundation.
While there are many forms of arthritis, there are three common forms, causes and symptoms that may mean you should check with your doctor to see if you may have developed arthritis.
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis. This progressive, degenerative joint disease is characterized by the breakdown of joint cartilage. This form of arthritis is most often associated with old age, being overweight/obese, and a history of joint injury.
Osteoarthritis develops when cartilage, the spongy tissue that cushions joints, deteriorates, causing the bones to rub up against one another. Doctors can test your body’s range of motion to determine whether you may be suffering from osteoarthritis, and follow up with an X-ray to evaluate joint-space narrowing, bony spurs, or cysts on the bone.
Osteoarthritis sufferers should be careful about their physical activity, but not become couch potatoes. Low-impact exercise, like swimming, biking and walking, are important to keep joints in motion, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like naproxen (Aleve) or ibuprofen (Advil) to manage pain.
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder that typically affects the small joints in your hands and feet. RA is usually characterized by inflammation in the membranes lining the affected joints, which can cause pain, stiffness, warmth, swelling and joint damage. While RA can strike patients of any age, it is most commonly found in patients over the age of 40. Unlike osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis affects the lining of the joints, causing a painful swelling that can cause bone erosion and joint deformity. This disorder is caused by the body’s immune system mistakenly attacking our own body’s tissues. Because of this, RA sufferers sometimes have damage to other organs of the body, including the skin, eyes, lungs and blood vessels.
RA is typically accompanied by symptoms such as tender, swollen joints, morning stiffness that can last for hours, firm bumps under the skin on your arms, fatigue, fever and weight loss. While RA can be difficult to diagnose in its early stages, doctors can perform a number of tests to diagnose you. They will likely do bloodwork to determine if you have an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR, or sed rate), which indicates the presence of an inflammatory process in the body. Tests to gauge reflexes and muscle strength will likely be performed, along with X-rays to diagnose and monitor the disease.
If you have symptoms of RA, it’s important to seek medical attention and monitor the disease. Along with the painful symptoms in the joints, RA can put people at greater risk for a number of other diseases. According to the Mayo Clinic, these risks include:
Osteoporosis: RA itself, along with some medications used to treat it, can increase your risk for this condition, which weakens your bones and makes them more prone to fracture.
Carpal tunnel syndrome: If RA attacks the wrists, the inflammation it causes can compress the nerve that controls most of your hand and finger functions.
Heart problems: RA can increase your risk of hardened or blocked arteries, leading to an increased risk of stroke. It can also cause inflammation of the sac that encloses your heart.
Lung disease: People with RA are at an increased risk of inflammation and scarring of the lung tissues, which can lead to shortness of breath and other complications.
Juvenile Arthritis
While arthritis is most commonly associated with an older population, Juvenile arthritis (JA) is a term used to describe a range of autoimmune and inflammatory conditions in children under the age of 17. Most forms of juvenile arthritis are autoimmune disorders, resulting in redness, heat, pain and swelling in the joints.
To be classified as juvenile arthritis, a patient’s symptoms must have started before the age of 16. Doctors will typically suspect JA when a child presents with persistent joint pain or swelling, unexplained skin rashes, and fever associated with swollen lymph nodes or inflammation of internal organs. Since there is no one test to diagnose JA, typically a diagnosis is made once doctors have performed tests to rule out other conditions.
What Can I Do to Minimize Pain?
NSAIDs and prescription medications are helpful in managing arthritis pain, but sometimes you will still have pain after taking your medication. To ease this pain, you can try:
● Taking a warm shower
● Doing gentle stretching exercises
● Using an ice pack on the sore area
● Resting your sore joint
● Trying range of motion exercises that help maintain joint movement and flexibility
● Taking daily vitamin supplements, including calcium
● Trying ginger and willow bark extract, as noted by The American College of Rheumatology, as a natural pain reliever.
● Taking fish oils that contain omega-3 fatty acids, which have been reported to relieve pain and joint tenderness
● Taking steps to reduce stress, which can cause muscle tension and increase arthritis symptoms
If these things don’t work, you should call your doctor to discuss whether another kind of medication might be more appropriate for you. In more serious cases, patients may be able to benefit from surgery, such as joint replacement.