Arthritis - Finding Medical Care
By editor | August 7, 2007
Every morning for the past two weeks you’ve awakened with aching joints. Or your hip has made you so miserable that you couldn’t help snapping at your spouse. Or your fingers hurt so much it’s difficult to grip a pen to do your favorite crossword puzzle.
You know something is wrong. You’re wondering if you have arthritis. But you’re not sure if you need to see a doctor. Arthritis is just the price of getting older, right? And what can doctors do about it, anyway?
Plenty. And doctors and other health care professionals can also help you learn to help yourself. In this topic we’ll tell you how to find the best possible care and what a wide range of support is available.
Why You Shouldn’t Wait It Out
Only a doctor can tell you if your knee hurts because of arthritis or because you tripped over the cat last week. She is also the only person who can tell you what sort of arthritis you have. And that’s an important distinction, because treatments for the two most common types osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are very different.
Rheumatoid arthritis, as well as other inflammatory diseases, involves severe inflammation that, if left untreated, can seriously damage your joints and lead to complications else where in the body such as in the heart and lungs.
Doctors now believe that beginning treatment early is vital because much irreversible joint damage occurs in the first two years after the disease hits. It’s harsh but true-early intervention with rheumatoid arthritis can mean the difference in whether or not it will cripple you. 
It isn’t as crucial to rush to the doctor with osteoarthritis, as the damage it does happens more slowly and is not as devastating. But a doctor can help you learn to avoid activities or motions that damage your cartilage or aggravate your condition. Sometimes damaged cartilage can be surgically trimmed, and in a few cases it can be “patched.” And treatments just around the corner, which some doctors are already recommending, may slow cartilage damage. Regardless of what treatment is needed, early medical attention can prevent joints from “freezing up” or losing mobility. Because if your joint hurts, you’ll tend to move it only to the point that it begins to pain you and eventually you might become unable to move it any farther.
Tagged under:aching joints Arthritis doctors health care inflammatory diseases lungs motions osteoarthritis rheumatoid arthritis
Topics: Arthritis |
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