A Brief Introduction To Rheumatoid
Arthritis
This is according to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin
Diseases.
You might not know it, but you could be suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Although rheumatoid arthritis is
commonly associated with the older generation (people over the age of 65), the disease is found in younger
generations - even including children. How could you tell if you have it? Well if you're experiencing morning
stiffness for no apparent reason (like if you had done a lot of strenuous exercise the night before, for example),
you might be suffering from one of it's symptoms. As mild as you might think morning stiffness is, you really ought
to give it some serious thought and consult with your doctor because if that morning stiffness is related to
rheumatoid arthritis, you can work to prevent it from disabling or crippling you later on down the road to a point
where you can barely function. But rheumatoid arthritis isn't just a physical condition. It has the propensity to
tax your mental and emotional state of well-being tpp.
This is because arthritis can change the way you work, the way you interact with your family, and the way you
entertain yourself with recreational activities. You might even know someone with rheumatoid arthritis and have
observed how this disease changed not only his or her mobility, but also his or her outlook on life. Those of us
without rheumatoid arthritis tend to take our ability to move anyway we want for granted, but when that ability
slowly disappears right before our eyes, it's no surprise that we get depressed about it.
But it doesn't necessary have to be that way. With proper medications, education, support, and prescribed
exercises, you could work to prevent the most severe forms of the disease - or at least prolong the worst case
symptoms.
Arthritis works in two ways. First, it inflames the muscles, ligaments, and cartilage that sit in-between
joints. And it's this inflammation that causes the pain, swelling, and heat. Those are symptoms that are typical
indications of an injury and they're vital to understanding more about this disease. Second, arthritis works by
releasing enzymes that basically consume or otherwise destroy the muscles, ligaments, and cartilage that have
become inflamed to a point where they're not very useful and don't allow for easy movement. In the worse cases,
cartilage disappears completely and as you can guess, this is extremely crippling and
uncomfortable.
That's why we call rheumatoid arthritis a disease. Typically, inflamed muscles, ligaments, and cartilage are the result of an injury, like falling on the
knees for example. But with arthritis, no injury has to occur. In fact, arthritis is a type of autoimmune
disease and the cartilage inside joints is one of the things that it destroys. And any joint can be affected -
one, two, maybe even more but most of the time, the disease targets fingers, hips, feet, and knees. Learn MOre About Weight Management.
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