Rheumatoid arthritis, also known as RA, is an autoimmune condition type of arthritis that can affect five or more joints altogether. This means that the immune system mainly attacks certain parts of the body, especially in the joints.
If not properly treated, this can lead to inflammation, which will cause severe joint damage. Studies show that every 1 out of 5 people who have rheumatoid arthritis have experienced lumps on their skin. That is called rheumatoid nodules, which often joint over joint areas that tend to receive the most pressure, such as the elbows, heels, and knuckles.
During the early course of dealing with rheumatoid arthritis, the most common joints that are usually involved include:
- Your wrists
- The joints that connects your fingers to your hands
- The middle joints of your fingers
- The joints that attach your toes to your feet
- Your ankles
The larger joints are often affected later in the process of its course – which includes parts such as your shoulders, knees, and elbows. Rheumatoid arthritis usually tends to develop in the same joints on both sides of the body as symptoms and signs include pain, noticeable warmth, swelling of the affected joint area, and morning stiffness that may last over an hour.
When not treated during the early stages, rheumatoid arthritis can cause a hefty amount of damage that will become worse over periods of time. This disease has a strong potential to completely damage the joint’s tissues as well as the bones itself. Through continuous inflammation in between the spaces of the joint, this will gradually increase the damage of the fibrous connective tissue that is used to hold the skeleton together at the cartilage – ultimately narrowing down the space of the joints and eventually eroding the bones.
Symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis
As symptoms can slowly appear or start very suddenly, they are most often more severe than symptoms of osteoarthritis. As Rheumatoid arthritis often affects multiple joints, you may feel sudden pain and stiffness as well as swelling in your wrists, hands, elbows, knees, shoulders, ankles, neck, feet and jaw. There is usually a symmetrical pattern in symptoms.
For example: When the ankles on the left foot start to become inflamed, the ankles on the right will also become inflamed. After a short period of time, more of your joints will gradually get involved and become painful and swollen as well as feel warm to the touch.
Joint Swelling
This often persists and definitely interferes while you are driving, walking, working, and other daily activities. The stiffness often starts in the morning when you wake up and may even continue to last for hours, and even throughout the day. Your body may also start to feel fatigue and a sudden loss of appetite.
When multiple joints become affected, synovitis can lead to a cause of tissue tethering along with the loss of movement and joint erosion – with ultimately leads to loss of function and deformation.
Causes of Rheumatoid Arthritis
This chronic autoimmune disorder is not well understand as well as no proper evidence of what the physical and emotional effects really are to cause a trigger for the disease. Various negative findings suggest the many causes of what could trigger it, yet most of the risk is believed to be considered genetic.
Risk Factors of RA
Studies show that although the actual cause of RA is still undetermined, many cases result from an interaction between environmental exposures and genetic factors. Smoking is considered as one of the most significant non-genetic risks as patients who smoke are about three times more common with positive RA than those who don’t smoke.
A deficiency in Vitamin D is also found to be more common in people dealing with rheumatoid arthritis when compared to the general population. Although a vitamin D deficiency remains unclear whether to be considered as a cause or a consequence of the disease.
Treatment and Management for Rheumatoid Arthritis
While there is no given cure for RA, management and treatments can also improve the given symptoms and help to slow down the progress of the disease.
The main goal of the treatments are used to minimize pain and swelling while also preventing such bone deformity and being able to maintain a steady daily lifestyle. Treatment is often carried by two forms of medications including NSAIDS and Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDS).
Lifestyle Habits
In order to maintain a properly overall physical function, regular daily exercise is highly recommended to protect muscle strength. As beneficial as physical activity may be, those who are struggling with Rheumatoid arthritis might find daily exercise to cause certain amounts of fatigue. Therefore, occupational therapy has proven to be a positive role in improving functional ability. In regards to diet, it is still uncertain as to what foods are proper and which are harmful.
Surgery
During the early course of RA, doctors recommend an open synovectomy or an arthroscopic to be performed as it includes the removing of the inflamed synovia to prevent any quick damage of the joints being affected. Those who suffer from most highly affected joints may require replacement surgery, as most often a knee replacement.
Alternative Medicine
Although there is not enough thorough evidence to thoroughly support such health approach for Rheumatoid Arthritis, there are some mindful as well as physical practices along with dietary supplements that many have found to help with RA symptoms.
Helpful Dietary Supplements for RA
Herbal
There is no support in health claims of herbal medicines; therefore the American College of Rheumatology does not recommend their use.
Omega-3
Evidence shows that omega-3 fatty acids appears to claim modest benefits in RA, though there is not enough evidence to conclude that omega-3 supplementation is a powerful and effective treatment.
Rheumatoid Arthritis is said to affect around 1% of Adults in developed countries. Recently, research showed that in 2010, there was a resulted 49,000 deaths from RA globally. Rheumatoid Arthritis most commonly started much earlier for women in the 40-50s years of age and a somewhat later for men.
References:
https://www.jointhealthmagazine.com/jointrelief
http://community.healthywomen.org/profiles/blogs/know-these-joint-pain-triggers-that-make-rheumatoid-arthritis
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