What Is Arthritis and How It Is Treated?

Arthritis treatment?

If your age is over 45 and you have pain in your knees, then you should know about arthritis because the reason for your pain may be Arthritis.

What is Arthritis?

In arthritis patients experience pain in the joint and there is swelling. In advanced disease conditions, the pain is so severe that it becomes difficult even to perform normal routine daily activities. The patient is unable to perform even simple activities like getting up from a sitting position, walking for a small distance, walking up the stairs, etc.

How many types of arthritis are there?

There are many types of arthritis, but two of them are commonly seen.

Osteoarthritis: This is the most important and most common type of arthritis and it affects the articular cartilage of the joint specifically the knee joint. Tibia, femur, and patella move over each other smoothly because of articular cartilage. After cartilage damage, the knee movement becomes jerky with a feeling of pain while moving the knee. Osteoarthritis mainly affects the large joints of the body.

Rheumatoid arthritis: It is different from osteoarthritis. It affects the small joints of the body and causes swelling and pain. The immunity decreases and patients feel severe pain.

What are the symptoms of arthritis?

The main symptoms of arthritis are:

Joint pain: Pain in the joint is the most important symptom of arthritis, which can be relieved by doing exercises or yoga or by massaging the knee joints. The condition becomes severe in untreated conditions.

Stiffening of joints: In patients who develop arthritis, stiffness of the joints is commonly seen.

Swelling of joints: It is a common symptom seen in these patients.

Knee joint restriction: After having arthritis, the joints become stiff and there is a restriction in the movement of the knee joint.

Reddening of surrounding tissues of the knee joint: The joint which is affected by arthritis, the surrounding skin of the knee joint becomes reddish.

Clicking sound while joint movements.

Causes of Arthritis

The following are the causes of arthritis:

• Muscle weakness: After the age of 40 our muscle mass reduces 8-10% every year, this muscle weakness exerts an extra load on the joints and causes damage to the joint cartilage.
• Tendon and ligament: Injury to those structures make the joint unstable. Weight transmission axis also affects and this puts pressure on the joints and leads to further damage.
• Cartilage damage:  With age and continuous wear and tear of the joint cartilage leads to cartilage degeneration and damage to the joint. Cartilage degeneration is the root cause of osteoarthritis.
• Deformity: If your joint is deformed due to injury or some other reason, it alters the weight transmission axis and creates uneven pressure on the joint, and leads to osteoarthritis.  

Other factors that cause osteoarthritis are:

• Injury to the knee joint: The chances of osteoarthritis increase in patients who had sustained a past injury to the knee joint.
• Genetics: The gene for osteoarthritis is inherited by the next generation.
• Lack of calcium in the diet: In patients who do not consume a diet containing calcium, the prevalence of osteoarthritis is high.

Treatment of Arthritis

Arthritis is a degenerative disease. The disease continues to deteriorate. The physician prescribes painkillers and anti-inflammatory steroids or some intra-articular injections for reducing the pain. 

Medicines: Analgesics are prescribed for pain reduction. 

Physiotherapy exercises: Exercises to strengthen the muscles of the joint are taught. 

Yoga: Benefits of yoga are seen by patients with arthritis.

Stromal Vascular Fraction (SVF): Stromal Vascular Fraction (SVF) has brought a revolution in knee joint preservation. There is evidence that has proved the efficacy of this treatment in osteoarthritis of the knee. The physician uses adipose tissue in this treatment. According to the doctors, now the treatment of the knee joint can be done using this fat tissue. After this treatment, the patient can perform all physical activities. Knee osteoarthritis of more than 1000 people in Australia and India has been treated with this technique. After that none of the patients needed any medication for knee pain. 

Surgery: When all the medical means to treat the pain of arthritis fail, then total knee replacement is the last option available.