Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is traditionally considered a chronic, inflammatory autoimmune disorder that causes the immune system to attack the joints. It is a disabling and painful inflammatory condition, which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. RA is a systemic disease, often affecting extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and muscles.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It commonly affects the joints in a polyarticular manner. The symptoms that distinguish rheumatoid arthritis from other forms of arthritis are inflammation and soft-tissue swelling of many joints at the same time. The joints are usually affected initially asymmetrically and then in a symmetrical fashion as the disease progresses. The pain generally improves with use of the affected joints, and there is usually stiffness of all joints in the morning that lasts over 1 hour. Thus, the pain of rheumatoid arthritis is usually worse in the morning compared to the classic pain of osteoarthritis where the pain worsens over the day as the joints are used.

There is no known cure for rheumatoid arthritis. However, many different types of treatmeant can be used to alleviate symptoms.

Pharmacological treatment of RA can be divided into disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), anti-inflammatory agents and analgesics. DMARDs have been found to produce durable remissions and delay or halt disease progression. In particular they prevent bone and joint damage from occurring secondary to the uncontrolled inflammation. This is important as such damage is usually irreversible. Anti-inflammatories and analgesics improve pain and stiffness but do not prevent joint damage or slow the disease progression.

Treatment also includes rest and physical activity. Regular exercise is important for maintaining joint mobility and making the joint muscles stronger. Swimming is especially good, as it allows for exercise with a minimum of stress on the joints. Heat and cold applications are modalities that can ease symptoms before and after exercise. Pain in the joints is sometimes alleviated by an application of oral acetaminophen. Other areas of the body, such as the eyes and lining of the heart, are treated individually. However, there is no diet that has been shown to alleviate rheumatoid arthritis, although fish oil may have anti-inflammatory effects.

...More at Wikipedia  

Related Links:

• Arthritis Foundation
• US National Library of Medicine
• Mayo Clinic

Recent Hope Cube Blog Entries For Rheumatoid Arthritis

• What next? Fri, September 14, 2007 - [view]
  I don't know where to go next with my treatment.  I was on Enbrel, and it didn't seem to do enough.  So now I'm on Rituximab, but it wears off to soon.  The first round seemed to stop working by five months.  Now I'm just at the 4 1/2 month mark of the second round and I'm feeling pain again. Last month, my Doc increased my Methotrexate from 15mg to 20mg in hopes that it would stave off the pain that I was getting on weekends.  But instead I find that I'm feeling exhausted and fuzzy, and I think the MTX is to blame.  I have an appointment on Friday, and hope that I can get some ideas on a better path to take.