Article title: Arthritis: NWHIC
Conditions: Arthritis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Osteoarthritis
Source: NWHIC
Click here for Easy to Read version.
What is
arthritis?
What
is osteoarthritis and what causes it?
What is the difference
between rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis?
How do you treat
osteoarthritis?
How can you tell if an
advertised cure really works?
What else, besides
medication, helps to alleviate arthritis?
See also...
Arthritis means joint inflammation. In a normal joint, where two bones meet, the ends are coated with cartilage, a smooth, slippery cushion that protects the bone and reduces friction during movement. A tough capsule lined with synovial membrane seals the joint and produces a lubricating fluid. Ligaments surround and support each joint, connecting the bones and preventing excessive movement. Muscles attach to bone by tendons on each side of a joint. Inflammation can affect any of these tissues.
Inflammation is a complex process that causes swelling, redness, warmth, and pain. It's the body's natural response to injury and plays an important role in healing and fighting infection. Joint injury can be caused by trauma or by the wear and tear of aging. But in many forms of arthritis, injury is caused by the uncontrolled inflammation of autoimmune disease, in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues. In severe cases, all joint tissues, even bone, can be damaged.
The general term arthritis includes over 100 kinds of rheumatic diseases, most of which last for life. Rheumatic diseases are those affecting joints, muscle, and connective tissue, which makes up or supports various structures of the body, including tendons, cartilage, blood vessels, and internal organs.
The two most common forms of arthritis are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Osteoarthritis (OA), at one time called degenerative joint disease, is the most common type of arthritis in older people. Symptoms can range from stiffness and mild pain that comes and goes to severe joint pain and even disability.
OA usually affects the hands and the large weight-bearing joints of the body: the knees and hips. Early in the disease, pain occurs after activity and rest brings relief; later on, pain occurs with very little movement, even during rest.
Scientists think that several factors may cause OA in different joints. OA in the hands or hips may run in families. OA in the knees is linked with being overweight. Injuries or overuse may cause OA in joints such as knees, hips, or hands.
The most common type of arthritis is osteoarthritis, affecting more than 16 million Americans. This degenerative joint disease is common in people over 65, but may appear decades earlier. Rheumatoid arthritis, which affects 2.5 million Americans, can strike at any age, but usually appears between ages 20 and 50.
Osteoarthritis begins when cartilage breaks down, sometimes eroding entirely to leave a bone-on-bone joint in extreme cases. Any joint can be affected, but the feet, knees, hips, and fingers are most common. It may appear in one or two joints and spread no further. In rheumatoid arthritis, the hands are most commonly affected, but it can affect most joints of the body. Inflammation begins in the synovial lining and can spread to the entire joint.
Painful and knobby bone growths in the fingers are common, but usually not crippling to osteoarthritis. The disease is often mild, but can be quite severe. For sufferers of rheumatoid arthritis, though, arthritis is highly variable and difficult to control and can severely deform joints. Some people become bedridden. Others continue to run marathons. Furthermore, rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease affecting the whole body, with the potential to cause weakness, fatigue, loss of appetite, muscle pain, and weight loss. Blood tests may reveal anemia and the presence of an antibody called rheumatoid factor (RF). However, some people with RF never develop rheumatoid arthritis, and some people with the disease never have RF. In about one in six, the disease becomes severe and can shorten life. Researchers hope to find ways to predict which patients should be treated more aggressively.
Treatments for arthritis work to reduce pain and swelling, keep joints moving safely, and avoid further damage to joints. Treatments include medicines, special exercise, use of heat or cold, weight control, and surgery.
Medicines help relieve pain and reduce swelling. Acetaminophen or ACT should be the first drug used to control pain in patients with osteoarthritis (OA). Patients with OA who don’t respond to ACT and patients with RA and gout are most commonly treated with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen. People taking medicine for any form of arthritis should limit the amount of alcohol they drink since these agents can irritate the stomach. (For more information, see the Age Page "Arthritis Medicines.")
Exercise, such as a daily walk or swim, helps keep joints moving, reduces pain, and strengthens muscles around the joints. Rest is also important for the joints affected by arthritis. Physical therapists can develop personal programs that balance exercise and rest.
Many people find that soaking in a warm bath, swimming in a heated pool, or applying heat or cold to the area around the joint helps reduce pain. Controlling or losing weight can reduce the stress on joints and can help avoid further damage.
When damage to the joints becomes disabling or when other treatments fail to reduce pain, your doctor may suggest surgery. Surgeons can repair or replace damaged joints with artificial ones. The most common operations are hip and knee replacements.
Arthritis symptoms may go away by themselves but then come back weeks, months, or years later. This may be why many people with arthritis try quack cures or remedies that have not been proven instead of getting medical help. Some of these remedies, such as snake venom, are harmful. Others, such as copper bracelets, are harmless but also useless. The safety of many quack cures is unknown.
Here are some tipoffs that a remedy may be unproven: claims that a treatment like a lotion or cream works for all types of arthritis and other diseases too; scientific support comes from only one research study; or the label has no directions for use or warnings about side effects.
In the past, doctors often advised arthritis patients to rest and avoid exercise. Rest remains important, especially during flares. But doing nothing results in weak muscles, stiff joints, reduced mobility, and lost vitality. Now, rheumatologists routinely advise a balance of physical activity and rest. Exercise offers physical and psychological benefits that include improved overall fitness and well-being, increased mobility, and better sleep.
Joints require motion to stay healthy. That's why doctors advise arthritis patients to do range-of-motion, or flexibility, exercises every day--even during flares. Painful or swollen joints should be moved gently, however.
Strengthening and endurance activities are also recommended, but should be limited or avoided during flares. Arthritis patients should consult their doctors before starting an exercise program, and begin gradually.
A claim describing the relationship between a nutrient or dietary ingredient and a disease, such as arthritis, cannot be made on the label or in labeling of a food or dietary supplement unless the claim is authorized by FDIn order for FDA to consider authorizing the use of a health claim, there must be significant agreement among qualified experts that the health claim is scientifically valid. As of December 1996, FDA had not authorized any health claims for a relationship between any food or dietary supplement ingredient and arthritis. Sometimes, however, food or dietary supplement products are found on the market with unauthorized claims.
You can find out more about arthritis by contacting the following organizations:
Arthritis Foundation 1-800-283-7800
Arthritis National Research Foundation
American Juvenile Arthritis Foundation 800-283-7800
American College of Rheumatology
60 Exec. Park S., Ste.
150
Atlanta, GA 30329
404-633-3777
FAX:
404-633-1870
acr@rheumatology.org
National Arthritis and
Musculoskeletal and Skin Disease Information Clearinghouse from the
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
(NIAMS)
This information was taken directly from an article that originally appeared in the March 1996 FDA Consumer as "Coping with Arthritis in Its Many Forms" by Carolyn J.Strange. The version above is from a reprint of the original article and contains revisions made in December 1996 and June 1997. Publication No. (FDA) 97-1237
All material contained in the FAQs is free of copyright restrictions, and may be copied, reproduced, or duplicated without permission of the Office on Women's Health in the Department of Health and Human Services; citation of the source is appreciated.
Publication date: 1998
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