09/03/2023
🤩Arthritis Overview: Symptoms, Causes & Treatment
Arthritis is a fairly common disease, mainly seen in middle-aged people and is now tending to be younger. The disease causes joint swelling, stiffness, long-term limitation of movement, gradually turning to joint deformity, muscle atrophy and is the leading cause of disability. For readers to have a deeper understanding of the disease, its causes, symptoms and treatment, please refer to the following article.
What Is Arthritis?
Arthritis is a condition in which the joints are injured due to a variety of causes. Inflamed joints cause pain, stiffness, swelling, heat, redness, and affect mobility. Inflammation can occur in one or more joints, with increasing levels of inflammation.
According to statistics, currently in the world, the rate of people with arthritis is 10-12%, the US is a country with a very high number of people suffering from arthritis, 1/3 of the population suffers from it, about 42 million people suffer from pain and inflammation. symptoms of raging disease. The Arthiritis Foundation reports this arthritis affects 50 million adults, and 300,000 children.
Causes Of Arthritis
There are many causes of arthritis, here are some typical causes:
– Age: the older you are, the more aging bone cells become, the joints no longer secrete fluid, which easily leads to dryness, the structure of the bones becomes brittle and easy to break. The older the age, the greater the incidence of bone and joint diseases.
– Osteoarthritis: degenerative joint disease is a disease that causes the cartilage of joints to become rough, reduce smoothness, elasticity, dry and cracked, worn, defective ... the higher the aging level, the complications lead to pathology. more about arthritis.
Gender: According to statistics, women have a higher rate of disease than men, accounting for about 60%.
Genetic factors: Heredity is also one of the notable factors, for those who have relatives with arthritis, the incidence rate is higher than that of the general population.
Overweight, obesity: In overweight and obese people, the risk of disease is higher, because the joints are subjected to more forces from the body weight.
Occupation: People who work in a strenuous environment, often affecting the joints are also the cause of arthritis.
Infection: In the case of an infection, microorganisms enter the joints causing arthritis.
Other causes such as injury, improper diet, wearing high heels, some diseases related to joints.
Symptoms Of Arthritis
Depending on the type of arthritis, location, and progression of the disease, symptoms may develop gradually with the following symptoms:
Swelling: A typical sign of inflammation, the patient will see swelling on the fingers, toes, and many other joints such as the shoulder, spine, knee, and hip joints.
– Hot, red in the inflamed joints: the skin in the inflamed joints is often redder than the surrounding skin, when touched, it feels soft and burning.
– Stiffness and limitation of movement: Patients often feel stiff, especially in the morning, the joints are often stiff, which can last from a few minutes to an hour. Commonly stiff joints are wrist joints, finger joints, knee joints, ankle joints ... and significantly affect the patient's activities.
Joint pain: pain is often persistent, dull, pain often increases at night, making the patient sleepless, difficult to sleep. Pain usually increases with movement and decreases with rest.
- In addition, there are additional symptoms such as prolonged fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss. Some people have rashes, anemia, shortness of breath, dry eyes and mouth, and night sweats.
If the disease is not treated and cared for in time, the patient may have complications of joint deformity, muscle atrophy, muscle weakness.
Some common places of arthritis
– Ankle arthritis: usually quite common because the knee joint is always under great pressure of the body.
– Hip arthritis: Besides the knee joint, the hip joint is also a joint with a high incidence, the disease is common in women, especially women during pregnancy and perimenopause.
– Shoulder arthritis
- Arthritis of the fingers
– Arthritis of the wrist
Arthritis Treatment
Lifestyle changes:
– Should maintain a reasonable weight, average body mass (BMI) should be between 18.5-23 which is the recommended range recommended by medical experts.
Exercise regularly with gentle exercises such as walking, yoga, swimming for about 30 minutes a day. Avoid exercising for a long time that will increase the burden on the joints.
Avoid keeping the body in one position for too long or activities that increase the burden on the joints.
– Should eat with a healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables containing essential vitamins and minerals for the body.
Get enough sleep: sleeping 8-10 hours a night and napping during the day will also help you improve your health quickly, sometimes can limit the outbreak of disease.
