Signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a severe disorder which might not look so until your golden age passes by but as older the person gets, Rheumatoid arthritis starts showing its true colours after you cross the age of 30 and this disorder takes no time after that to become devastating for your joints and other surrounding parts of the body. However, current medical science has got the potential to use such medicinal practices which can prevent the devastating joint destruction and other troublesome effects of this disease but only if it’s detected in the early stage and the treatment will well dosed by the medical practitioners.

Being aware of the early signs of rheumatoid arthritis is the best thing a person can do and discussing the signs and symptoms them with your doctor can help you a lot in this case because you will always have the heads up in this case.

Rheumatoid affects the immune system of the patient and causes joint pain and swelling, it is a chronic inflammatory disease. It’s a true fact that, there's no permanent cure available yet for the disease, but new anti- rheumatic drugs like biologics have been discovered and have the capability to target the inflammation associated with the disease and pace down the spreading speed of this disorder.

Signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritiscan vary from person to person, but three hallmarks of the disease distinguish it from other there are many other types of arthritis and the Signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis of rheumatoid arthritis are different in each person but these are the three characteristic signs and symptoms of RA.

Puffy joints. Rheumatoid arthritis causes Tenderness, swelling and puffiness in the joints present in your hand, the target area of this diseases where it attacks first is the knuckles where your palm connect with your hand. It’s a hotspot of this diseases and this sign is considered as the most important sign in detecting Rheumatoid arthritis.

Bone rigidity. The patients suffering from Rheumatoid arthritis are unable to move their bones especially in the morning time due to stiffness caused in the bones. In case of osteoarthritis, this condition persists throughout the day. But Rheumatoid arthritis mostly causes this problem in the morning time.

Other bodily symptoms:

Rheumatoid arthritis weakens your immune system adversely giving rise to other heath issues including fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, and a low-grade fever. It’s essential for a person to discuss these signs with the doctor because in the early stage, there is a lot that can be done to stop the fast progress of this issue.

At the beginning stage of Rheumatoid arthritis, it attacks the small joints of the hand or foot but later on RA progresses towards affecting larger joints in the body, such as the ankle, knee, shoulder, hip, and neck. Rheumatoid arthritis has got the tendency to spread in symmetry over time, for example it will affect your one hand first and after sometime, your other hand will also get involved in the diseases symmetrically and same is the case with other paired body parts.

The symptoms of this disease vary from person to person. In some persons, the symptoms appear for some period of time and then disappear momentarily but in some cases the symptoms of this disease remain persistent throughout life. This disease can also give rise to firm lumps underneath your skin known as rheumatoid nodules, but they usually grow on the area exposed to pressure like elbows. If left undetected and untreated, rheumatoid arthritis can attack the cartilage that surrounds the joints as well as the bones present your body, the destruction of cartilage will lead to loss of movement, deformity, and disability.

Besides that the swelling caused due to RA can have serious impact on the other parts of your body also especially eyes, lungs, etc. The process of impact of RA on your lungs inst a clear path but the lung complications caused by this diseases can also cause death of a person.

Interstitial Lung Disease associated with Rheumatoid arthritis:

RA-ILD (Rheumatoid arthritis-associated interstitial lung disease) is the name assigned to the serious lung complication occurring in people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Although this illness is challenging to be detected early, but this serious interstitial lung diseases begins when lung tissue becomes inflamed and scarred. This complication is more likely to take place in men as compared to women and smoking has been alerted as a risk factor which could accelerate lung complication. However there’s no effective treatment available which could cure this ailment permanently.

Pulmonary Fibrosis associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis:

Permanent scarring of the respiratory tissues is an another disorder caused by the Rheumatoid Arthritis resembling RA-ILD but in this case scaring of respiratory tissues causing problems like shortness of breath, because of the fact that air sacs get filled up by scar tissue and respiratory surface area gets diminished. Although Supplemental oxygen can be used artificially to make breathing easier, but will not be able to retain what has already consumed by pulmonary fibrosis. You must note that the drug methotrexate (Rheumatrex, Trexall), is the one that doctors give to the patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis but it has been found that this drug can cause pulmonary fibrosis. Therefore it is necessary for a patient to keep the respiratory activities under monitoring if this drug is being prescribed.

Anaemia associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis:

It has been scientifically observed that Anaemia is always associated with majority of chronic illnesses. However underlying reason of ACD (Anaemia of Chronic Diseases) has not been fully unfolded yet but it’s being said that the inflammation that occurs throughout the body in RA could be the cause behind Anaemia. RBC production is highly altered when the protein associated with inflamed tissues intertwines with the Iron present in the body and this result in less RBC count. There are some non steroidal drugs often prescribed by doctors which can also promote the anaemic in a person known as NSAID’s. There’s drugs should only be consumed under doctors supervision.

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