Art forms

Arthritis is a disease of the joints in which an inflammatory process develops in them. Arthritis has 5 forms, which are determined depending on the cause of the disease, these are rheumatoid, reactive, infectious, gouty, psoriatic arthritis. Each form has its own symptoms and treatment.

Rheumatoid arthritis

It's an autoimmune disease. Most often, this type of arthritis affects the joints of the knees, hands, and ankles. According to statistics, every hundredth inhabitant of the planet suffers from this disease, among whom there are more women than men.

The exact causes of any type of arthritis have not yet been established. However, it is believed that rheumatoid arthritis is a consequence of an infectious disease, during which an autoimmune reaction begins. This happens like this: after a pathogenic microorganism enters the human body, the immune system produces antibodies that are designed to destroy pathogenic cells. But sometimes, in addition to pathogenic ones, antibodies begin to attack healthy cells. Most often, joint tissues are the first to suffer.

Rheumatoid arthritis necessarily has a symmetrical lesion (for example, the joints on the index finger of both the left and right hands become inflamed). There is swelling of the joints, painful sensations on palpation, limited mobility and pain during light physical exertion.

It develops, as a rule, gradually. In the initial stages, there is weakness in the joints, rapid fatigue and pain after prolonged physical exertion.

Reactive arthritis

This is an aseptic inflammation of the joints. It is most often found in people who are carriers of HLA-B27 after infectious diseases of the genitourinary or immune systems. Unlike rheumatoid, patients with this type of arthritis do not have autoimmune antibodies against blood proteins, etc. in their blood serum.

It is mainly diagnosed in people under 35-40 years of age.

Very often, such patients develop conjunctivitis and various skin lesions.

In addition to joints, the inflammatory process affects tendons and ligaments. The inflammatory process is most often localized on the joints of the lower extremities.

Symptoms include:

* Characteristic joint syndrome, which includes 5 main signs of inflammation: redness, pain, swelling, increased skin temperature over the affected joint, impaired functionality.

* Lesions of the skin and mucous membranes;

* symptoms that are present with urogenital infection: purulent discharge, pain in the lower abdomen, impaired urination and pain during it, etc.

* Conjunctivitis;

* increased body temperature, rapid fatigue;

* lesions of the heart (myocarditis, pericarditis), kidneys and peripheral nervous system.


Infectious arthritis

This is an inflammatory disease of the joints, which is caused by the ingress of pathogenic microorganisms into the joint cavity during injury or from other foci of infection localized within the body. The most common pathogens of this disease are Staphylococcus, streptococcus, proteus and Klebsiella.

As a rule, one or more adjacent joints are affected. The symptoms are acute and very pronounced, most often manifested as:

* swelling and redness of the joint;

* severe pain and limited movement of the joint;

* increased body temperature and chills;

* high cytosis of synovial fluid; Australia set for life results