Get Familiar With Most Common Arthritis Variations

Considering that arthritis is one of the most common diseases in the world, it is very useful if everyone has some familiarity with it because you never know if this disease will affect you or someone close to you. Because of that, we are going to discuss the most common variations of this disease by covering the most important details of each variation.

What are the shared symptoms and causes

The best way to suspect arthritis is if a patient notices that they are experiencing tenderness and swelling in some of their joints. This disease can affect a single joint only, which often causes a lot of people to ignore the pain and the swelling, as they just think that they have injured themselves while working out, but it can also affect multiple joints quite often.

The most common symptoms besides pain and swelling are also stiffness and redness, and if the condition tends to develop, patients may also notice that the affected joint is capable of less motion, or better said, decreased range of motion.

Quite often, arthritis has certain conditions that are a good indicator that patients which such conditions may have arthritis later in their life. One such condition is scleroderma, which is a fairly uncommon condition that represents itself as hard and thickened skin.

Sometimes, patients with scleroderma have only some areas affected by this disease, and at other times, much bigger areas of the skin, as well as organs and blood vessels. The reason why patients have this condition is not completely known, but it is known that their own immune system plays a big role in it. That is, it is an autoimmune condition.

Just like with arthritis, according to a scleroderma specialist, this disease has symptoms that can be noticed before the disease completely develops in the form of swelling and itching. This a great example of why even minor inconveniences like that are a good reason to visit a doctor.

Illustration of osteoarthritis affecting the joint.

Osteoarthritis

By far the most common type of arthritis is osteoarthritis, which is one that occurs when the protective cartilage is completely destroyed and ends up wearing bones over time. As we mentioned earlier, arthritis can damage any joint, but when it comes to osteoarthritis, it is most common in the spine, hips, knees, and hands.

Besides the general symptoms, osteoarthritis can be experienced with tenderness, a grating sensation were moving a joint can cause popping or crackling sounds. Patients can also experience bone spurs, which are hard bits of bone that can be noticed around the affected joint.

Since osteoarthritis is the most common type, there is a lot of research on it, and thus there is a medication that can help patients manage the pain that comes with the condition. Considering how medicine is evolving, we can hope that a cure for this variation of arthritis will be discovered soon.

Rheumatoid arthritis

While arthritis is known for affecting the joints, one type of arthritis that is a chronic inflammatory disorder that affects the skin, eyes, heart, and blood vessels are rheumatoid arthritis. This is an autoimmune disorder, and compared to osteoarthritis, which acts as a wear and tears disease, rheumatoid arthritis works differently by causing erosion in bones.

While rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune condition that is hard to treat, it does have a lot of similarities with lupus, a condition that often leads to different types of arthritis. However, luckily, lupus treatment is available in most cases, as it also comes in different variants.

Gout

One quite common type of arthritis is gout, but even if it is common, that does not make it any less complex. This condition is caused when your body does not excrete the uric acid from your body, and the remaining uric acid goes through the body and stops at the joints. There, it forms crystals, which then cause damage to the joint.

Gout is known to affect the big toe the most.

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis

As the name suggests, this type of arthritis is often diagnosed in younger patients, usually in children who are under sixteen years of age. This is a very painful type of arthritis, and like other ones, it will represent itself in the joints along with swelling and stiffness.

While other types of arthritis usually make life difficult at a later age, this one is an even bigger problem because it will cause issues with growth and sometimes even with eyes. There is a way to treat it, but a cure is yet to be found.

Final word

Arthritis is quite a common disease, and more treatment options are becoming available every year. As time passes by, we can only hope that it will not take too long before a cure is found, for ones caused by different factors, and ones caused in an autoimmune way too.