What is arthritis?

Arthritis is a disease which involves inflammation or breakdown of your joints. It is a disease that affects your joint and knee movement. There are mainly two types arthritis – osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Normal wear and tear, age and previous history of any injuries causes arthritis.

What are the symptoms of arthritis ?

• Decreased range of motion
• Knee pain
• Redness and stiffness
• Swelling

What are risk factors for arthritis ?

The risk factors for this disease are

• Obesity
• Women are more likely to develop this.
• Your family history makes you more prone to it.
• Previous surgery or joint injuries are risk factor.
• You can develop this with growing age

What are the types of arthritis ?

There are different types of arthritis. These are ;

• Osteoarthritis
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Psoriatic arthritis
• Gout
• Septic arthritis

What is osteoarthritis?

Osteoarthritis is a chronic degenerative disease characterized by wear and tear of cartilage of the joint. Absence of cartilage causes the opposing body surface to rub against each other causing pain while walking or getting up from sitting position. Patients with advanced osteoarthritis also have joint deformities and restrictions of joint movement.

In whom does osteoarthritis occur?

Osteoarthritis is mostly and age-related disorder and typically affects people over 50 years of age. Previous injury to the knee, obesity 8 letters are another important causes of osteoarthritis in the younger age group.

What are the common symptoms of Osteoarthritis?

• Over and around knee joint more on climbing stairs, squatting or sitting crossed legs
• Loss of joint movements
• Joint deformities
• Occasional knee swelling

Treatment for Osteoarthritis

Treatment for Osteoarthritis differs depending on the stage.

• Early osteoarthritis :  In mild osteoarthritis with minimal pain, medicines usually give adequate pain relief. Knee exercises, ultrasonic sittings, weight reduction may be advised by us. However excess use of pain killers can be harmful for the body especially the kidney and is not recommended.

• Advanced osteoarthritis : In advanced osteoarthritis, the cartilage over the joints is almost completely worn out, in addition joint deformities and stiffness make medical management of this disease very unsatisfactory. Such patients get very good results with surgery which is total knee replacement.

What is Rheumatoid Arthritis ?

Rheumatoid Arthritis is an autoimmune disease where the immune of the body attacks the joints causing joint destruction and swelling. It causes cartilage destruction at a much younger age than osteoarthritis.

What are the common symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis?

• Joint pain and swelling
• Fatigue and tiredness
• Stiffness of joint
• Discomfort in doing regular work or movements