Joint pain

To date, joint pain is one of the first places in the world among the syndromes that occur in the practice of a family doctor. According to statistics, the pain in the joints is to some extent experienced by 80% of the world's population.

Pain in joints is a symptom of a very complex disease of the musculoskeletal system. A man is tormented by prolonged and often sharp pains, which are very difficult to tolerate. What are the causes and characteristics of joint pain?

Symptomocomplex Joint pain, which develops when one or more joints are involved in the pathological process, is called articular syndrome. Diagnosis of this syndrome in the practice of the family doctor is sometimes quite a difficult task. First of all, this can be explained by the existence of a large number of diseases that occur with the defeat of various bones and joints, as well as the presence of an unusual, worn out clinical picture of the disease, especially in patients who receive or received the day before such medications as steroid hormones, antibiotics.

Sometimes the diagnosis is hindered by the scarcity of clinical manifestations, the long latent course of the disease, the monosymptomicity of the defeat of the musculoskeletal system, which creates the conditions for masking the disease for other conditions. Joint arthritis and joint pain in some cases outstrip for some time the typical extra-articular manifestations of the disease. Typical laboratory changes and radiologic signs may be absent for a long time. In all these cases, differential diagnosis of joint lesions takes a fairly long period of time (months and even years).

In addition, there is a significant group of diseases that have pain in the joints and proceed with the damage of the periarticular tissues and are accompanied by clinical manifestations similar to the joint syndrome. Such diseases include bursitis, tendovaginitis. And only occasionally the diagnosis is carried out on one or several specific signs - pathognomonic symptoms (for example, skin plaques in psoriatic arthritis, high titers of antibodies to DNA in systemic lupus erythematosus). At the same time carefully collected by the doctor anamnesis is one of the central and determining links of the differential diagnosis of the joint syndrome. Anamnesis and objective research contain 60-75% of the information necessary for a general practitioner to make a diagnosis. Laboratory methods, X-ray and other instrumental studies help to clarify the nature of joint damage only in some cases. Particularly important among the anamnestic information in the diagnosis is the analysis of pain.

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What causes joint pain?

Pain in the joints is quite a lot of patients - more than a third of the people on the planet. And more than half of the patients are over the age of 40, and more than 90% of the patients are people aged over 70. That means that with the age, this disease takes on more and more people in its grasping paws.

If you do not go to the doctor on time to treat pain in the joints, they become more and more aggravated and then they are much harder to cure.

What diseases can cause joint pain?

One of these diseases, which provoke pain in the joints, is arthritis. People with this diagnosis suffer from inflammation of joints - several or one, as well as pain in ligaments and tendons. Pain in one area, one joint is a monoarthritis, and in more than three articular formations - polyarthritis.

How to recognize inflammation in the joints and tendons? Watch your body. You may have arthritis if the following symptoms are observed.

• Ointment joint
• Temperature increase
• Pain in the joints in the area of the edema or near it
• Inability to move freely because of pain
• Musculoskeletal

Why arthritis develops?

This disease provokes infections, weak blood flow, metabolic disorders, calcium deficiency in the diet.

If the cause of joint inflammation is an infection, the person will be hurt even at rest. And it does not matter at all whether you have physical overstrain or you are moving a little.

With the infectious nature of arthritis, pain in the joints can bother and in a state of complete rest (for example, when a person is lying or standing), and with the slightest movement, not to mention the abrupt movements.

In addition to pain, a person may have swollen limbs or fingers. The area of this swelling is a diseased joint. Then the limb will be inactive because of pain, its shape is gradually changing because of the permanent tumors and fluid that inevitably accumulates under the skin in the middle of the diseased joint.

These visible signs are also accompanied by severe fatigue, heat, headaches, mood swings, increased irritability.

Osteoarthritis and its signs

What is osteoarthritis? This disease of the joints, in which they deformed and swollen, there is pain in the joints. This disease is considered the most common in rheumatology.

How does osteoarthritis occur? Over the years, the cartilage, which is located between the joints and designed to protect them from injuries, is becoming more vulnerable. It is no longer so flexible, it quickly collapses, hardens and can become inflamed. Cartilages can rub against each other, its tissue is erased and inflamed. Then the tendons and ligaments attached to it, stretch and also become inflamed, there is pain in the joints.

No joint can not be protected from inflammation, everyone and them can become a target of this disease. With osteoarthritis, the knees, the spine, and the fingers or toes and the thighs can suffer.

At a visible level, joints can be swollen, in the area of folds, thickenings are formed on them - the so-called cones. There may be redness.

What to do when you are diagnosed with osteoarthritis?

Consult a doctor, maybe weight loss and a change in diet will ease your joint pain. Of course, you will have to buy painkillers, as well as vitamins and glucose.

Well reduces the load on the joints swimming.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and its symptoms

With this disease of the joints they become inflamed, it hurts. But there are signs that distinguish this disease from others. This is the so-called symmetry - pain in the joints is observed in the right and left side of the body. On this basis, it is possible to distinguish RA from other species and begin to treat it.

RA is very dangerous, to the point that it can lead to death. The sooner you start treating the disease, the faster you can cope with it. Therefore, at the first signs of the appearance of the RA, you must always consult a doctor for treatment.

Temporal arteritis - how dangerous is it?

Temporal arteritis is inflammation and pain in the joints. It is accompanied by pain in the temples, hence its name. Pain in the temples arises from the inflammation of the vessels of the eyes and head. This disease does not come one thing - along with him, the person is also affected by rheumatic polymyalgia (multiple pain in the muscles).

It is caused by malfunctions in the immune system of the body, in particular, the response of immunity to external stimuli.

Temporal arteritis is characterized by

... Pains in different parts of the body, in particular, thighs, eyes, head, shoulders. This disease can occur suddenly and a person can not even move with pain.

Other symptoms are sudden weakness, fatigue, movement restrictions, fever, rapid weight loss, severe headaches, pain in the shoulders, hips.

If you do not undergo treatment on time

A person can go blind, get a stroke, there may be other irreversible consequences.

Many people do not suspect that they have temporal arteritis, taking it only for headaches. But it is worthwhile to be alert and timely to see a doctor at the slightest deterioration of well-being, in order not to aggravate the disease.

Fibromyalgia and its signs

In this chronic illness, a person has severe joint pain and increased sensitivity. It's enough just to touch the skin - and a person can experience sudden and sharp pain. At the same time, insomnia, fatigue and weakness are still troubling.

The nature of fibromyalgia is still poorly understood. But doctors say that the culprits of the disease are not injuries and bruises. Although the disease affects nerves, muscles and joints, they may not be injured before.

Fibromyalgia is associated with increased sensitivity of brain nerve cells - the brain and spinal cord. Its causes are also called hormonal imbalances (low levels of hormones controlling mood, susceptibility to pain).

Signs of fibromyalgia - sleep disorders, pain in the joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons, decreased mood, increased sensitivity to touch, melancholy, depression.

All this prevents a person from fully living and enjoying life, so the main goal of treatment is to regain the former state of health and relieve depression.

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How is fibromyalgia treated?

First of all, patients take sedatives - to adjust the sleep regimen.

Antidepressants can also be included in the treatment of fibromyalgia, because depression can increase susceptibility to pain.

Medications to reduce inflammatory processes, such as naproxen or ibuprofen, are also on the list. True, they can not fight the pain for long, sometimes not coping with this role. Then the doctor prescribes other, more powerful, painkillers.

Feeling the symptoms of fibromyalgia or joint pain, you should immediately consult a doctor to start treating the disease at its initial stage.

On the structure of joints and the nature of pain

If you know why there is pain in the joints, it is much easier to fight them and treat them. Therefore, you need to understand the symptoms to find out what diseases they provoke. Then you can assign the optimal treatment.

A few words about the structure of the joints. What is the joint? This is part of the limb - arms or legs - which is mobile and which is connected to other joints with the help of ligaments. Two bones can be linked together using the joints.

Bones can move through the tendons and muscles to which they are attached. If at least one of these components (tendons, muscles, ligaments) starts to hurt - doctors call it one common term - joint pain.