Take Control of Your OsteoarthritisKnowing the symptoms and causes of osteoarthritis(OA) is essential before choosing a treatment method. OA is the most commom form of arthritis. This degenerative joint disease is the painful result of cartilage breakdown. Without healthy, intact cartilage, bone ends grind away at each other, eventually damaging the joint.
Although it can affect any joint, OA most commonly affects the knees, hips, lower back, neck, and fingers.
Symptoms Osteoarthritis is often a gradual disease which progresses over the course of many years. Joint pain is often the first indicator. When cartilage breakdown occurs, bone ends grind against each other, resulting in pain. The pain increases as the cartilage continues to erode. (Because cartilage contains no nerve endings, cartilage damage may go unnoticed for a long time until the bone ends begin to touch. Bone ends contain many nerve endings, as do the other structures around the bone ends. The structures around the bone ends are contained within the joint capsule. Pain also comes from muscle, ligament, and tendon attachments on the bone.)
Most people experience this pain as a deep ache emanating from within the joint, not to be confused with muscle ache. In the beginning stages of the disease, the pain usually comes and goes depending on activity level. The pain increases with just activity and decreases with just rest. Pain can occur on the inside or outside of your joint. As the disease progresses, the pain becomes faily constant, making it difficult to complete simple, everyday tasks. If the pain persists at night, a good nights sleep may be a thing of the past.
Stiffness is another symptom of osteoarthritis. Initially, mild stiffness occurs briefly and can be easily worked out with movement. Or a knee can lock up after sitting in one position for an extended period of time. But as the disease progresses, the stiffness becomes more prevalent and can't be worked out through movement. Eventually, stiffness results in loss of mobility, or range of motion. Simple tasks like brushing your hair or teeth, twisting off jar lids, turning a door knob, bending over, climbing stairs, or getting in/out of your car can be difficult or impossible to complete. Though pain is a usual indicator of osteoarthritis, there are some people who experience stiffness and loss of mobility without experiencing pain.
Swelling around a joint does not always accompany osteoarthritis. But cartilage damage may cause discomfort and inflammation of joints, most often in the finger and knee joints.
Crepitus is a crackling or popping sound which eminates from an arthritic joint while in motion. It usually occurs in a knee or shoulder during advanced stages of the disease. It can be caused by damaged cartilage rubbing together, or by bony growth around the damaged joint. It's often painless but can affect joint mobility.
Causes of Osteoarthritis There are two kinds of osteoarthritis(OA), primary OA and secondary OA. Primary OA, also classified as degenerative joint disease(DJD), is the result of cartilage breakdown, a wear and tear process due to an unhealthy aging process. It's a slow, progressive condition that usually begins after the age of 45, commonly affecting the weight-bearing joints such as knees, hips, lower back, neck, toes and fingers. In many cases, it's a hereditary gene that causes the disease.
What causes cartilage breakdown isn't completely known, but scientists believe the cartilage components get scrambled during regeneration and rebuilding. In healthy joints, cartilage that's damaged or old is replaced by new cartilage regenerated by a specialized cell call chondrocytes. Chondrocytes produce the basic structure of cartilage--- collagen and proteoglycans.
Secondary OA includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Trauma to your joint can be caused by a fall, an auto accident, or a sport injury, just to name a few. You're much more likely to develop osteoarthritis once a joint has been injured.
Repetitive motion injury often leads to the disease. A baseball pitcher's arm, a runner's knees, a football player's knees and hips, a mail sorter's wrists are all more susceptible to cartilage break down because they are stressed repeatedly over a long period of time.
Bone disease often results in weakened bones which may fracture and develop bony overgrowth at bone ends.
Excess body weight is a huge culprit. The more weight you carry, the more stress you place on your ankles, knees, hips, and back. A clear link has been established between arthritis of the knees and excess body weight. Walking and running places stress on your knees equivalent to 3-10 times your body weight.
Bone damage has also been linked to osteoarthritis. When a bone fracture occurs, either through trauma or a stress fracture, the body repairs the damage by knitting the bone together. In some cases, an overgrowth of bone at the injured area occurs. If the fracture was at the bone end, then the overgrowth results in a bone end that is rough and bumpy, causing joint problems.
cartilage
|
