Painful joints

Joint pain is a common medical condition. And behind all this, the rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis may be underlying conditions. And first aid would be to rest painful joints as much as possible and to regularly apply hot or cold wraps on the affected area. Severe infections and difficult injuries can sometimes be caused by cancer of joints and that is truly the worse case. But it is almost never that serious. Sometimes the pain can be caused by gout, different bone diseases, metabolic disorders all this can cause a joint pain.

Symptoms or signs

Symptoms of joint pain are stiffness of the affected area, warmth of the affected area and swelling of the affected area, due to a regular infection of an injury, RA or OA. The joints are often painful, swollen and red. The affected area is actually tendon or ligament. If pain gets to be too strong then doctor needs to check and identify suitable treatment. Older people do not necessary get stiffed joints; young people can get painful joints as well. However, painful joints can be triggered by condition such as rheumatoid arthritis that is autoimmune, or osteoarthritis that includes degeneration of joint cartilage.

It is very hard to determine joint pain if it is severe or mild. If the pain gets to be serious the area is sensitive to touch and joints are very restricted on limited movements. Diagnosis needs details of person’s medical history and full physical and medical examination. Lab tests are also usual. Beside lab tests, doctor does the x-ray scans, there involving CT scans or MRI scans. Sometimes it is usual to perform an arthroscopy. An arthroscopy is a procedure when flexible and small tube is injected in the joint to check interior of a joint via little skin incision.

Treatment

The medications for painful joint treatment needs lot of warm baths, stretching, massage, resting or exercises: it is better to do not use joints for some time and to provide joints an extra care for some time. Doctor often suggests a physiotherapist that, with patient, works on the rehabilitation program.

A massage and exercises for stretching is useful strategy that is often prescribed by doctor. But all exercises need to be directed by doctor, in order to improve muscle tone and mobility of the joint. There are nutritional supplements that may help with joint pain and maintaining. But the very extreme cases of painful joints may need a surgery.