Rheumatoid Arthritis
Thursday, July 24th, 2008Rheumatoid arthritis affects the many joints in our bodies and is not prominent in any one place over the other. This type of arthritis also affects the heart, lungs and the blood as well. Rheumatoid arthritis is the inflammation of synovium, or joint lining. The pain suffered from this extremely painful disease can be from stiffness, redness, swelling, and warmth. The joints that are affected over time may lose their shape and will result in the loss of normal everyday movement. Rheumatoid arthritis generally starts around the age of twenty and can last a lifetime. This type of disease typically flares and can have active symptoms or in remissions with no symptoms or only a few of them.
What are the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis? In some patients with rheumatoid arthritis, chronic inflammation leads to the destruction of the cartilage, bone and ligaments causing deformity of the joints. Unlike osteoarthritis, which results from wear and tear on your joints, rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory condition. Because it can affect multiple other organs of the body, rheumatoid arthritis is referred to as a systemic illness and is sometimes called rheumatoid disease.
Rheumatoid arthritis is as autoimmune disease, which means that the body?s immune system is not working as it should and lets the rheumatoid arthritis disease attack the healthy joints and the tissues around it, allowing for the initiation of joint damage and inflammation.
Rheumatoid arthritis is diagnosed by a positive Rh factor, (a blood test), and x-rays that show rheumatoid deterioration in the joints. There are many different ways to treat rheumatoid arthritis, which include medication, rest, exercise and surgery. The medications fall into two specific categories, NSAIDs and DMARDs, and attempt to reduce the pain, swelling and inflammation. Humira, one of the latest discoveries, attempts to isolate the diseased cells so they cannot reproduce and cause more harm.
Some of the criteria used to diagnosis rheumatoid arthritis is morning stiffness of more than one hour of most mornings for at least six weeks, arthritis and soft-tissue swelling of at least three out of fourteen joints and arthritis of the hand joints. There is no known cure for rheumatoid arthritis. Many types of treatments have been used to ease the symptoms. Some of the more common ones are acupuncture, apple diet, nutmeg, nettles, prayer, bee venom and pollen, copper bracelets, rhubarb diet, rest, honey, fasting, magnets, vitamins and cortisone therapy.




