Osteoarthritis: symptoms and complex treatment of the disease

This disease is diagnosed in more or less severe form in 60-85% of patients older than 60 years. She suffers and younger people - mostly athletes, often musicians. In the last ten years, the circle of people suffering from this ailment has expanded due to the fact that more and more people spend their free time, not for sports, but for computers: one of the factors in the development of this disease is overweight. Probably, you already guessed that this disease is arthrosis. Symptoms of it are easy to recognize: a specific crunch, aches, whining, responding to a rapid change in weather ("joints break with rain").

The causes of this ailment may be different: hereditary predisposition, sedentary lifestyle or vice versa - heavy loads on the same joints, prolonged hypothermia or trauma. But most often arthrosis is a consequence of banal old age. After all, this is nothing more than the gradual wear of the interarticular cartilaginous layer. However, do not be frivolous to hope that this disease will not affect you, until you hit the sixty: in recent years, arthrosis is increasingly becoming a disease of the young.

Osteoarthritis affects various joints. The most common cases are the knees and hip joints, less often the hands (phalanxes of the fingers and the wrist) and the ankle joint. Often this disease manifests itself on the big toe. Musicians and people working at the computer complain most of all about arthrosis of the fingers. Constant tension in the fingers leads to the development of arthrosis - the symptoms do not slow down to appear in the form of pain in the upper phalanges of the fingers, less mobility and, in especially neglected cases, swelling, deformation and total inability to flex the finger in the joint. In relation to which joint was affected by arthrosis, the symptoms of the disease can manifest itself in different ways. However, there are some universal signs that can be used to determine that a person does not have synovitis (an inflammatory process in the joint tissues that lead to accumulation of fluid), not arthritis (inflammation of the joint), namely arthrosis.

The pain and crunch, which causes arthrosis in the affected joint, are universal symptoms. It should be said that, unlike arthritis, arthrosis pain excruciates a person during exercise: it is worth giving a leg or fingers a rest, as the pain subsides. At night, as a rule, she does not visit the patient, unless when the limb lies in an uncomfortable position. But the more neglected the disease, the more pain comes. First, at any load, and then from any movement. In neglected cases, people begin to suffer night pains, which can be reduced by dry heat.

A crunch in the knee does not always mean that you have arthrosis of the knee joint. Symptoms of this disease are manifested in certain characteristics of snapping. If in healthy people sometimes when squatting a slight crunching is heard, not accompanied by painful sensations, then with this disease the crunch is dry, coarse, as if a thick branch breaks. With the progression of the disease, the sound becomes louder and accompanied by pain. The decrease in mobility and deformation is accompanied by arthrosis of the hip joint, the symptoms of which are determined by the fact that osteophytes begin to grow - spines, bony growths that do not allow the limb to move fully. These formations can eventually change the appearance of the limb, leading to its shortening, and can also cause another disease - synovitis (inflammation of the synovial membrane), accompanied by swelling of the joint and severe pain.

At this disease, as well as with others, in no case it is impossible to engage in self-medication. This can lead to a sharp progression of the disease and lead to disability. With the appointment of treatment, a full diagnosis of the patient's condition is important, and one can not do with a walk to the radiologist and delivery of tests. After all, it is important to know why this important liquid dries up and cartilage tissues are destroyed: due to endocrine changes, cardiovascular diseases, or, perhaps, due to infection or trauma. Only a doctor can establish the real cause of the disease, determine the stage of its course and develop the most correct treatment tactics.