Many Different Diseases All Called Arthritis

by Alan Beartoes

What does arthritis mean?

Arthritis literally means joint inflammation. You also have to understand that arthritis is not a single disease. Arthritis refers to an entire group of diseases.

Most people don’t realize that there are over 100 conditions and rheumatic diseases that are all arthritis related. What they all do is cause pain, swelling and stiffness in a variety of manners and all of them affect different parts of the body.

The time that joints are starting to get damaged is when it is said that you have arthritis. Most of us realize that this condition affects the older population. Each of the different forms of arthritis all have there own cause.

What do they have in common, 100 different diseases

We have a hundred different forms of arthritis, so what is common with all of them? The answer to this question is without a doubt pain. The arthritis pain will be different among all of the individuals suffering from arthritis, and the location of the pain will also be different.

Warning signs and some symptoms of arthritis

One main sign other than pain is the stiffness, swelling in moving your joints

Pain, swelling and stiffness in moving one or more of your joints may be a sign that you are starting to suffer from arthritis. If you are having these problems for two weeks or longer, then you need to visit your doctor immediately and have these symptoms checked out and treated. You don’t want to let this go with out doing anything.

There are so many different types of arthritis, and I am not going to list all of them here. This would become quite a long article. What I am going to do is to list a few with the symptoms that go along with each.

Osteo arthritis – this is really a degenerative joint disease and most of the time the pain is worse at night or after resting. Usually this occurs due to wear and tear on the body. Symptoms of Osteo arthritis can be:

tenderness decreased function of the joint pain in affected joint swelling

Osteo arthritis is gradual and subtle during the onset. It will involve one or more joints and some of those joints are:

spine area your hands hips become sore hard on the knees

Rheumatoid – most often the pain is felt in the morning. When in the elderly and children some of the limbs may refuse to function and the pain may not be as pronounced.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an auto immune disease. This occurs when the body’s own immune system basically starts to attack itself. Rheumatoid arthritis can be a chronic and potentially disabling disease which can cause:

Rheumatoid arthritis symptoms are similar to the other types of arthritis you can possibly lose function of a joint there is going to be pain in the joint swelling will be evident the joint will become stiff

Why rheumatoid arthritis occurs is still not known. Why the body attacks itself is a mystery. Doctors are wondering if this is genetic? It can be hard at first to tell if a person is suffering from rheumatiod arthritis, since it occurs so gradually.

Here are some of the other types of arthritis, and don’t forget there are many more not listed. You have as mentioned rheumatoid, osteo arthritis, gout, pseudogout, septic, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and there are as I say many others.

The advances in medicine today have made treating the different types of arthritis many. You can use medicine prescribed by your doctor or even over the counter drugs and also arthroplasty and this is only a couple of ways to treat arthritis symptoms.

When joint pain is so severe that there may come a time when prosthetic joint replacement may become necessary. The people who have had this done are very satisfied with the results.

You have to understand that arthritis has been around for a long time. Arthritis dates back to 4500 B.C.. It was then the first traces were noticed in humans.

Ankle osteoarthritis were found in dinosaurs. Even the native Americans of Tennessee, it was noticed that they suffered from a form of arthritis.

There may be a time in the future when a cure for arthritis will be found. But today we can just treat the symptoms of arthritis the best we can. To help the person have a better form of life is what the goal is today, by using drugs and other treatments. Time will tell if something happens out on the horizon, but for now there is no cure for arthritis but there are natural arthritis treatments that are available.

There are other treatments besides the couple listed above and I will talk about them in another article.

About the Author:
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