Arthritis
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Arthritis is a disease that causes pain and loss of movement of the joints. The word means joint inflammation. Arth means joint and ritis means inflammation, and arthritis refers to more than 100 different diseases.
Arthritis affects the movements that different people rely on for their everyday activities. Arthritis is also usually chronic, which means that it can last on and off for an entire lifetime for a person. There are over 100 different kinds of arthritis that can affect many different areas of the body. In addition to the joints, some of the other forms of arthritis have to do with diseases of other tissues and organs in the body. While many believe that older people generally get a type of arthritis, it is commonly known that children and young adults can also develop arthritis.
Inflammation is the term for a reaction of the body that causes swelling, redness, pain, and/or loss of motion in a certain area of the body. It is the major physical problem that exists in the most serious forms of arthritis. Inflammation is normally the way the body responds to an injury or to diseases, such as viruses or bacteria. During this reaction, many of the cells of the body’s immune system rush to the injured area to get rid of the problem, clean up cells that were damaged and repair tissues that have been hurt. Once the “battle” is won, so to speak, the inflammation normally tends to go away and that area of the body becomes well after a certain period of time. In many forms of
Eugene Nayvelt
arthritis, however, the inflammation simply does not go away like it should. It actually ends up damaging healthy tissues of the body. This results in more inflammation and more damage, which becomes a continuing cycle. This damage that occurs can change the bones and other tissues of the joints, which sometimes affects their shape and making movement hard and painful.
There is no cure that currently exists for arthritis, so physicians have concentrated on trying to get rid of the pain and different types of effects of this disease. The first major weapon against arthritis was aspirin, which was introduced in the year 1899. Arthritis is a very important drug that is used to decrease the symptoms of this disease. For many years arthritis was the only drug available to help reduce the symptoms of arthritis and was actually referred to as something called the “gold standard”. The biggest advance in arthritis treatment came when cortisone was discovered. Cortisone injections/shots are given to people with arthritis and these injections help to reduce inflammation and therefore help the patient.
Arthritis pain and the inflammation of the joints have many different forms. Rheumatoid arthritis can be one of the worst types of arthritis. It can have either very few symptoms or severe and painful symptoms. Three times as many women as men are affected, usually at a relatively young age, which is 25 to 50 years old. The disease can either come on slowly or appear suddenly. This disease usually affects small finger joints, knees, toes, and wrists. However, every join in the body is at risk the disease. Along with the swelling and pain of the joints, some of the earlier symptoms of the disease usually include weight loss, loss of appetite, fatigue, and even a fever.
Eugene Nayvelt
Sometimes the disease can even involve other organs, and can cause damage to the heart, lungs, skin and nerves. Many people with rheumatoid arthritis feel that the arthritis is somehow influenced by the weather, stress, temperature or exercise. Some of the people have periods when the disease tends to go away, but in most cases the symptoms tend to return.
The cause of rheumatoid arthritis is still