Saturday, April 7, 2012

Crippling Your Quality Of Life Is Arthritis

By Jocelyn Kinder


You know how hard it can make your life if someone you know or you yourself has arthritis. When it comes to arthritis, there are many different types. Over 100 forms of arthritis are known. It's described as a group of conditions that engage in damaging the body's joints.

Osteoarthritis is a form of arthritis and it's also the most common. Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease that comes as a result of excessive trauma to the joints, infection of the joints, or simply by old age.

With osteoarthritis, the amount of cartilage in your bones are decreased and it also affects your joints. When Osteoarthritis attacks the cartilage, your bones try to repair themselves. When the bone remodels itself, a bone cyst is formed in the process.

There are many symptoms of osteoarthritis and they can easily send you a warning. If you experience any type of stiffness or difficulty moving the joint and it causes pain, then you should consult your doctor because this may be an early sign of osteoarthritis.

The fingers, hip, spine, and knees are the most common joints affected with Osteoarthritis. Don't brush it off and see a doctor immediately if you feel your fingertips are engorged but aren't causing you any pain.

Osteoarthritis isn't the only form of arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is one of them. Rheumatoid arthritis causes severe inflammation of your joints. Because it strikes various organs in your body, you own body's tissue is unknowingly attacked by your immune system.

In this type of disease called autoimmune, your own body is targeted by the antibodies in your blood. Your immune system attacking itself causes inflammation.

Many people claim that there were extensive periods of time without any symptoms although rheumatoid arthritis is considered a chronic illness. In rheumatoid arthritis, the main symptom is inflammation of an organ or any joint.

Low energy, lack of appetite, stiffness of your joints, and fever are other symptoms. In the morning hours is when most patients describe the stiffness to be most dominant. While your symptoms have flared up, joints may also become tender or red.

Commonly known as psoriatic arthritis autoimmune disease or PSAAD, psoriatic arthritis is one of the scariest forms because the body ends up attacking itself in order to fight off the arthritis.

With psoriatic arthritis, your skin and joints are attacked. The name came from psoriasis, a skin condition affected 4% of the people in the US. Itchy, raised, reddish patches of skin are the main symptoms of psoriatic arthritis.

It's even possible for the patches to be flaky or scaly. Psoriasis more often affects the tips of your elbows, knees, scalp, or near your genitals. Most patients who claim to have inflamed joints paired with psoriasis are often diagnosed as having psoriatic arthritis.




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