Rheumatory arthritis - arthritus symptoms of arthiritis

Rheumatory arthritis (arthritus) symptoms typically begins with joint pain, stiffness and reduced flexibility which later goes towards functional degrading when the rumatory arthtitis develops.

	Rheumatory arthritis symptoms

Rhrumotoid arthritis can typically begin rather gradually as pain in the foot joints, it then goes further ahead in stages, or periods, with different activity levels and sometimes with almost no activity in between the stages. In yet anoter set of cases there may be high activity of the disease in an almost constant manner. The smaller joints, i.e. the fingers, toes, ankles etcetera are usually the ones first involved. Later in the rheumetoid arthritis the disease moves on to affect also the major joints. When the condition is active, the patient often suffers from tiredeness in the mornings and also a general weakness.

Patients who may have rhumitoid arthritis are recommended to be diagnosed by qualified doctors or rheumatologists. When the arthritus is diagnosed, it is imperative that a plan of rehabilitation is developed since the rhuematoid arthritis is a progressive condition. RA, in early stage can easily be mistaken for other diseases.

Typical symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis

Swelling and other rhumatoid arthritis symptoms like joint pain, are what makes up a rhematoid artirithis diagnosis, especially considering anormalities which in themselves can assist in arriving at the correct diagnosis:

• presence of anemia  
• the rheumatory factor (antibodies present in four out of five rheumatiod arthritis patients)
• higher then normal level of erythrocyte sedimentation rate in a blood test

For the diagnose of rheumatoid arthritus, especially in its later stage, X-ray may be helpful. However, in the early onset of the condition, X-ray examination may show up nothing at all (applies to people less than 6 months into the disease). For these early patients, there are not many tests that are available to diagnose the disease with any certainty. There do seem to be a certain correlation between heart disease (and stroke) and rhreumatory arthritis from findings in new research.

Reumatoid arthiritis medicine and treatment

First treatment of symptoms in joints, such as swollen joints or inflamed joints, can quite successfully be done with NSAID's (non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs). DMARD's can also be used for treating swollen joints (disease modifying anti rheumatic drugs). These are occasionally combined with NSAID's and sometimes also with corticosteroids. Using DMARD's has shown to be a vast improvement on many patients for the function and treating the RA symptoms of rumatory arthritus. 

Later research has developed the biologic response modifiers which are medicines that will target (partially) the immunal system to prevent it from causing the characteristic RA inflammations and the damage of the joints. Modifiers include Embril (Enbrel) have revolutionized the treatment of rheumatory arthritis and these are also DMARD classified. 

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