Rheumatoid arthritis(RA) is an inflammatory disease that causes joint pain and deformity. Every hundredth inhabitant of the planet suffers from it. This is an autoimmune disease that is associated with a malfunction of the immune system.
The disease arises suddenly. Immune cells mistakenly take joint cells for foreign elements – viruses, bacteria, and try to destroy them. This process lasts for years. Most joints are affected symmetrically. The rate of progression of the disease can be either small or rapid and is not determined by the degree of severity of the symptoms. The treatment is most successful if it was started before the illness leaked into a chronic form.
Rheumatoid arthritis can begin at any age, and will lead to joint damage without appropriate treatment. That is why it is extremely important to consult a doctor immediately, noticing the violations in the joints. Without timely intervention, it will be very difficult to prevent the occurrence of severe complications!
Look through 9 early signs of rheumatoid arthritis you should better not ignore:
- Fatigue. You can begin to experience excessive fatigue long before the manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis and the appearance of objective signs of the disease.
- Morning stiffness. This is a characteristic of early stage of the disease.
- Joint pain. Pain in the joints during movement or at rest is another characteristic symptom of the disease.
- The stiffness of the joints. Stiffness of the joint is also one of the earliest symptoms of the disease.
- Swelling of the joints. In some cases, swelling is very small and it is difficult to notice it, in other cases it can be rather obvious.
- Redness of the joints. Color changing is observed with inflammation.
- Local temperature increase. This is one of the signs of inflammation.
- Fever. Minor fever combined with one of the above symptoms is a sure sign of rheumatoid arthritis.
- Feeling of “walking on the balls”. This symptom is often noted by people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis.
Depending on the severity of the symptoms of the disease, as well as the nature of its course and the rate of progression, a wide variety of treatment methods are used. They vary widely, ranging from ordinary rest and nutrition, which is advisory in nature and ending with potent medicines. However, as a rule, therapy at the initial stage is sparing, if it does not help, then the patient should go on to more radical methods of treatment.
After diagnosing the disease, patients need to relax the workload and limit activities during an exacerbation. In this case, patients with rheumatoid arthritis should perform stretching exercises and aerobic exercises.
Furthermore, they need to avoid drinking alcohol, drinking too much coffee and smoking. Also, it is not recommended to eat tomatoes, sweet peppers, potatoes, aubergines, citrus fruit, corn grits, millet, oatmeal, rye, and pork. However, sour-milk products and those that contain carotenoids, for example, watermelons, papaya, carrots, apricots, plums, coriander are good in the process of treatment.
Unfortunately, rheumatoid arthritis requires systematic treatment, only in this case the disease can be controlled, preventing its development and alleviate the symptoms. This disease is characterized by long periods of remission (up to 2 years), but the disease returns again.
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