Types of arthritis that affects the knees Knee Health

Arthritis is something that most people will have to deal with at some point in their lives because it is one of the most common conditions in the world. In fact there are more than 100 types of different arthritis that can affect our bodies so unfortunately the chance that you will suffer from one of these arthritis is very high. And because knees are the part of our body that suffers the most amount of stress holding our weight and allowing us to move around it is possible that many of us will have arthritis in the knees as well as other joints. So to be ready for it and to be able to recognize arthritis symptoms and start doing everything you can not to make it worse let me tell you a bit about arthritis in general and more in depth about those forms of arthritis that affect our knees the most often.

Basically arthritis is an inflammation of your joint or multiple joints during which you can suffer from pain as well as swelling and stiffness of that joint. But because people use the therm arthritis to describe about 200 different rheumatic diseases that cause joint pains and pain to their surrounding muscles including the 100 arthritis types you cannot be sure that we are talking about real arthritis if you don’t specify the type of arthritis.

Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis

Possibly the most common arthritis type is osteoarthritis because this is the arthritis that occur from overuse of a certain joint or joints. This is also called the wear and tear arthritis because this arthritis usually happens with age as gradually the cartilage (material that covers the ends of our bones and helps with friction and shock absorption) in our joints breaks down, bones loose their cushioning and even the simplest activities become painful. The joints that are responsible for holding our weight and letting us move around are affected by osteoarthritis the most and because knees are one of these type of joints they often are the first to exhibit pain and other signs of osteoarthritis. But you don’t have to be over 55 to have osteoarthritis as even younger people can exhibit symptoms of osteoarthritis because overuse of joints happens not only with age but also with injury as well as conditions when extra amount of stress is put on these joints like vigorous activities over long period of time or obesity.

So if you start to experience deep pain, your joints have become warm to the touch, they are stiff, swelled and it is hard for you to do even the most basic of activities because of them then most likely you have osteoarthritis. It can be treated with strengthening exercises and medication but in more severe cases surgery is needed to repair or replace the joint that has Osteoarthritis.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Second type of arthritis that affect our knees quite frequently is rheumatoid arthritis. Although this type of arthritis still manifests as inflamed and painful joints rather than being a condition caused by overuse rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease meaning that your own immune system attacks parts of your body, usually these parts are our joints, causing inflammation and pain. And if RA us not treated it can even cause permanent joint damage. The attacking happens because our immune system is in overdrive and thinks that not only bacteria and viruses but also our own tissues are the enemy.

The first and main symptom that you suffer from RA not any other arthritis is that you get lumps on your joint areas. These lumps are called rheumatoid nodules and form because the joints where they have formed have received more pressure than others. Main treatment for rheumatoid arthritis include medication with anti-inflammatory properties as well as DMARD or disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs that will help slow down the effects of RA. But in more severe and longer untreated cases steroids are recommend as a way to make the pain and stiffens more bearable or surgery even surgery.

Psoriatic arthritis

Psoriatic Arthritis

Then there is psoriatic arthritis which although isn’t as common still is a possibility. Because it is called arthritis it will look like an inflammation to your joints and skin and in most cases it develops from a skin disease called psoriasis or if there have been cases of psoriasis or PA in your family. This is another autoimmune disease because if you have PA then your immune system being over active attacks your cells and tissues that actually are healthy causing first inflammation and overproduction of skin cells and afterwards if not treated more serious damage.

PA manifests as the regular arthritis symptoms like joint pain, stiffness and swelling that are accompanied with psoriasis symptoms like red, raised patches on the skin and scaling of the skin. If you know you have psoriasis or you simply start to develop these types of symptoms then go to your doctor right away because it is important not to let this arthritis to progress and damage your joints because there have been cases that PA has even causes disability of certain joints. The objective of treatment for Psoriatic arthritis is to control the symptoms because that will be the real way how you can prevent PA from causing serious problems for you. Your doctor will most likely prescribe you NSAI (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) and DMAR (disease-modifying anti-rheumatic) drugs that will help with the inflammation as well as will treat the immune system so it stops attacking your body. Also because there in no real cure for this condition things like different therapies are prescribed so you can reduce the stiffness and pain in your joints.

Traumatic arthritis

Traumatic arthritis (Post-traumatic arthritis)

And the fourth type arthritis that can affect specifically your knees is called traumatic arthritis or also called post-traumatic arthritis. Because it is still called arthritis the same process of wearing out of the joint happens, but like the name of this condition suggests this arthritis can only occur in joints (this case knees) that have suffered a physical injury form sports injury to any type of accident or even a sprain. What happens is the injury damages the cartilage and sometimes even the bone of the injured joint altering the joint and that way speeding up the wearing down process of the joint. And the more stress form activity, another injury or even excess weight is put on the specific joint the faster it will wear down and the worse it will get.

Usual symptoms for TA are pain, inflammation, swelling as well as fluid accumulation and decrease in motion of a joint that had been injured in the past. Unfortunately there is no way you can prevent post-traumatic arthritis once injury had happened (you can however prevent injury or make it less severe), it only can be slowed down by limiting the amount of stress you put on the injured joint and straightening it so it lasts longer. If the person is overweight the the first thing the doctor will advise is to loose weight as excess weight puts a huge strain even on healthy joints not to mention already damaged ones. Also in many cases low impact exercises are recommended so that you can strengthen the muscles surrounding the joint that is affected by TA that way slowing down the effects of the contition. And prescription of NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) medicine too is not uncommon so that you can lessen the inflammation. But in later cases of post-traumatic arthritis you might need surgery of either cleaning out, reconstructing or even replacing the bad joint so you can retain the motion of that joint and not suffer continuous pain.


Mathew Foster

I am Mathew Foster – an enthusiast of sports who not only regularly practices different sports, but also has a deep interest in it.

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