What is the difference between arthritis and osteoarthritis?
Many people confuse names because they don't know the differences.
These diseases are characterized by joint damage, but there is a significant difference between them.
What's the Difference
Arthritis can affect any joint. In many cases, this disease is a result of osteoarthritis. This is one of the consequences of untimely treatment of osteoarthritis.
To better understand both diseases, the differences are specific to each:
- Arthritis refers to various inflammatory changes in the joints;
- The more accurate name for the second disease is osteoarthritis. It is distinguished by the fact that the lesion affects the cartilage tissue.
2 disease progression mechanism
Arthritis - classification of varieties
Arthritis is the name of a specific group of joint diseases.
Swelling is characterized by inflammation. The inflammatory process leads to the production of enzymes that have a detrimental effect on the joint and eventually destroy it. In addition to inflammation, a sticky substance forms in the joint itself - fibrin.
This is a pain at rest and can be relieved with exercise. When getting out of bed in the morning, a person feels inflexible to overcome this feeling of having to disperse. The disease often affects the upper and lower extremities.
There is a division of the disease: degenerative or inflammatory. This classification is based on the nature of the disease.
A disease that affects the joint cartilage is called degenerative arthritis. Used to connect and move cartilage bones.
There are several types of this:
- Osteoarthritis;
- Traumatic arthritis.
The inflammatory course of the disease is characterized by damage to connective tissue, not cartilage. Inflammation occurs in the inner cavity of the joint capsule.
Divide this into the following types:
- causes infection;
- Rheumatic;
- Reactive plan;
- Gut.
To understand the difference between arthritis and osteoarthritis, it is important to understand that osteoarthritis is not similar to other diseases included in the concept of arthritis.
Stages of development of osteoarthritis
Arthrosis, but more accurately or more accurately called osteoarthritis, is a chronic lesion of the joints that deforms over time. The main cause of deformation is irreversible damage to cartilage tissue.
The specificity of the disease is that the destructive processes affect the cartilage tissue, followed by a violation of its integrity.
Arthrosis is a disease in which there is a mechanical abrasion in the cartilage joint until it is completely gone. The bones are exposed and friction already occurs.
The disease is a long-term, chronic disease.
There are 2 stages of development:
- Primary, found in 42% of patients. This is not due to joint damage, but as a result of excessive physical force or hard work. Men who have been engaged in manual labor for a long time get sick with it.
- The secondary develops in the patient more than the initial stage, and on this basis the mechanism of destructive processes is associated with the consequences of the trauma in which it is triggered.
Causes and Differences
Causes of arthritis
The main preconditions of the disease can be listed:
- Excessive sports or work;
- Various infectious processes, including latent ones;
- Any allergic reaction;
- permanent damage to the same joint;
- Metabolic disorders;
- Vitamin deficiency;
- Immune system disorders;
- Post-traumatic syndrome;
- Hereditary predisposition.
Root causes and main symptoms of osteoarthritis
The background of this disease is not well understood. Only people of retirement age are sick. The disease is affected by age.
Trauma is another version of osteoarthritis. It should be treated jointly. If this is not the case, signs of osteoarthritis damage appear after a few years.
Differences in clinical presentation and symptoms
Let's take a closer look at the symptoms that accompany joint disease.
Pain symptom. In the early stages, osteoarthritis is not characterized by the appearance of persistent intense pain. Only visible with a strong tension or joint movement. Pain passes when the load is reduced or the movement stops.
A person does not pay attention to such manifestations, it allows the symptoms to increase and the disease to develop.The pain begins to appear lightly. If a person takes a comfortable posture, it decreases.
There is systemic pain in the affected joints. It can be associated with long walks, sports or physical activity.
Sometimes the pain is felt after a long rest of the affected joint. If it is arthritis, the pain manifests itself both at rest and during physical activity.
This disease makes a person suffer in the morning. Severe pain occurs between 3 and 5 in the morning.
crisp sound. Dry crisis is associated with osteoarthritis. As cartilage tissue breaks down, bone begins to rub. The sound becomes rougher and louder, the patient manifests himself in the slightest movement of the joint.
Demonstrate rigidity of movement. Arthritis severely restricts the movement of both affected joints, and there is a decrease in the overall mobility of the entire skeleton.
Deformity of the diseased joint. Both arthritis and osteoarthritis can deform the joint. However, the deformation process itself occurs in different ways. There is no redness or inflammation with osteoarthritis. The joint is not hot to the touch. Deformation is also called cold. Swelling can be expressed during the exacerbation of the disease, accompanied by excruciating pain. 
Arthritis changes the joint, causing redness, redness and swelling. The pain is acute, occurs on palpation of the affected area, nodular formations can be palpated.
A blood test will tell you what. The blood count for osteoarthritis does not change. An increase in the number of leukocytes and a sharp increase in ESR are signs of inflammation observed in arthritis. Increased leukocytosis indicates that the body is susceptible to infection and inflammation occurs inside.
The number of inflammatory markers in the biochemical blood test for arthritis has increased, and in arthrosis they do not change significantly.
Pathological location. Osteoarthritis affects the large joints of the body. These will be the knees, hip joints and spine. The names of the disease are derived from: Gonarthrosis (damage to the knee joint), coxarthrosis (affected hip joint), spondyloarthritis (localized in the pathological spine).
Arthritis, also called rheumatoid arthritis, is one of the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. After waking up, a person feels stiffness in the area of his hands. The wrist joints are affected both at the same time. With rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis, signs of inflammation may appear in the joints of the fingers - swelling (swelling) and redness.
There are a number of other signs that you may recognize arthritis.
If one of your fingers around the top or bottom swells and turns red, you may suspect arthritis. Arthritis manifests itself as severe pain in the knees and ankles. Pain can also occur in the thumbs.
It is accompanied by swelling and redness of the joint. Symptoms of pain appear regularly, suddenly increase and then disappear. Infectious arthritis is accompanied by increased body temperature, general fatigue, a person sweats, chills, all the bones ache and ache.
Inflammatory processes affecting the joints adversely affect vital internal organs, heart, kidneys and liver.
Additional symptoms of osteoarthritis:
- Aseptic necrotic areas;
- Strong muscle tension;
- Partial immobilization of affected joints;
- slow separation of cartilage tissue, bones and friction between them;
- Inflammatory processes in the areas of tissue surrounding the painful joint.
Effect of sex and age of the patient on the presence of joint diseases
Who is affected by arthritis?
The proportion of arthritis patients is low and accounts for 2% of the world's population.
"35-50 year old" women are more sensitive to this.
Small joints are more affected.
Who gets the disease
Osteoarthritis does not affect the elderly, whether they are women or men. Retirees suffer from the disease after retirement. The total number of diseases is about 20% of the world's population.
Different diseases - different methods
Specialists in charge of treatment are called orthopedic trauma surgeons. Arthritis requires treatment from various specialists.
Arthrosis and how to fight it
Pain is relieved for a short time with the help of anti-inflammatory drugs. However, it has no effect on the course of the disease.
The main goal of treatment is to restore cartilage tissue. The main drugs that help to do this are chondroprotectors.
With the help of these drugs it is possible to cope with inflammation of the joints, regulate the metabolism in the muscles and restore damaged areas.
If conservative treatment does not give positive dynamics, arthroplasty can be applied.
Its essence is to perform surgery to replace a diseased joint. Osteoarthritis is a serious and incurable disease, because the ongoing processes are irreversible.
The patient should follow the doctor's recommendations on proper nutrition and therapeutic gymnastics - this is a mandatory stage of treatment. Gymnastics, medication, therapeutic measures - all this has a positive effect.
What medicines and prescriptions does the doctor give to the patient?
Recipes for uncomplicated conditions will look like this:
- Hormone therapy;
- drugs aimed at eliminating inflammation;
- Painkillers;
- Manual therapy, massage sessions;
- Training set;
- Physiotherapy - with the help of ultrasound and thermal methods.
The complex course of the disease will require additional medication. Sometimes doctors insist on removing the problem surgically.
Who needs the services of a surgeon? Patients with completely destroyed joints that cannot be repaired need to be completely replaced. Both full and partial replacement is used, depending on the degree of destruction of the joint.
Arthritis treatment
It all depends on the form of the disease. The methods of therapy will be different, can be combined, changed, choose the treatment that will give the desired result.
Lifestyle tips:
- Adequate nutrition,
- Avoid alcohol
- Decreased physical activity.
Antibiotics are prescribed and anti-inflammatory drugs are injected into the joint.
Mild gymnastics and physical therapy are useful in treatment.
The main thing in treatment is to eliminate the inflammatory process and improve the body's resistance. They use vitamin preparations and dietary foods. This includes seafood, dairy products and poultry.
Arthritis is a direct contraindication to sunbathing. Wearing high-heeled shoes can aggravate the disease, remove it from your wardrobe.
The disease puts its own prohibitions: alcohol, hard physical work must be a thing of the past. Health is too expensive to ignore doctors' recommendations!
Predicted disease outcomes
Diseases differ in their possible outcomes.
Arthritis is completely cured when the cause is eliminated.
Osteoarthritis is a chronic, slow disease that does not give a chance for complete recovery.
Simple Folk Remedy
In addition to drug treatment, it is useful to use reliable prescriptions of traditional medicine. Often, even doctors advise their patients to combine traditional medicine with folk medicine. This will speed up the healing process.
When treating arthritis, it is important to rethink your daily routine and diet. These two basic lifestyle pillars, if properly organized, can significantly affect the healing process.
Here are 6 rules you can follow to help a patient:
- Follow a proper diet. Review the menu to normalize the amount of food, vitamins and microorganisms consumed per day.
- To normalize the diet, it is useful to saturate the daily menu with fresh vegetables and fruits, and it is better to completely exclude salty foods or use less salt during meals.
- Avoid hot spices in ready-made products and home cooking.
- In a certain situation, refrain from eating foods that a certain person is rapidly gaining weight. These foods include foods high in carbohydrates.
- It is important to adjust the weight. If you have extra pounds, it is useful to get rid of them as soon as possible, because it has a negative effect on the lower limbs due to the heavy load.
- Avoid alcohol, as it has a negative effect on the body and contributes to the rapid development of drug intolerance.
Among folk remedies, recipes are especially effective:
- The use of birch buds is useful in the treatment of arthritis. They are poured with boiling water and the resulting mixture is boiled, wrapped in a warm cloth and allowed to infuse. Take half a glass three times daily before meals.
- Burdock root is crushed, put in a jar and vodka is poured on it. Insist in a dark place, shake the contents of the container regularly. As a result, the solution is rubbed where the pain is strongest.
Home treatment and eating habits
In case of osteoarthritis, it is useful to saturate the daily menu with oily fish. Contains omega 3 acids that quickly eliminate the inflammatory process and reduce pain. Alternatively, we recommend using fish oil, which is no less effective than oily fish.
Milk and dairy products are good for you, but low-fat foods are best. Cheese and cottage cheese should be saturated with enough calcium. Your daily diet should include plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
In case of osteoarthritis, make sure that the body receives enough vitamins. To do this, it is useful to take a vitamin course. Drugs with complex action should be preferred. Some vitamins help others to be absorbed faster. There are such complexes on sale that take this moment into account. This helps in the rapid assimilation of vitamins and prevents the deposition of salt in the joints.
Proper nutrition, weight regulation and constant monitoring of the condition of the skeletal system will help to cope with the disease, but will prevent future relapses.
Traditional medicine offers ways to fight the disease:
- Exercise regularly. There is no need to stress too much, the sport should be moderate and just enjoy the performance.
- It is useful to go swimming or just do various exercises in the water.
- Compresses are effective. With the development of the inflammatory process, hot options are useful and are suitable for relieving cold, for example, ice pains.
- Healing baths with an anti-inflammatory process are especially useful in the fight against this disease. Medicinal plants such as eucalyptus, calendula, sandalwood oil, St. John's wort are suitable for them.
Recommended Orthoses
Knee pads are used to fight these diseases. Patients who use them say that they really help to cope with pain, among other ways to fight the disease.
The choice of devices is different, so a model is selected that suits a particular patient, taking into account the course of the disease.
Each model has its own purpose. If you make a mistake with the selection, the device will not work because it will be impossible to install it.
Closed knee support is a device that covers the lower extremities. Made of elastic material, some models provide an additional layer of insulation. The choice is good when the pain is constant in different places. They are aimed at the anchor of the knee of the foot. Provides significant comfort while walking
Open models have a cup cut. They help to walk, reduce pain when bending the leg. Useful for people who need to climb stairs. The models have a rigid frame, made of elastic material. These devices help maintain the shape and position of the leg.
Disease prevention
As a preventive measure, it is useful to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It is useful to train moderately regularly. Quitting smoking and drinking alcohol will significantly reduce the risk of these serious diseases.
It is easier to prevent the development of any disease than to spend time, effort and money on its treatment. If we talk about arthritis and osteoarthritis, timely and complete treatment of all types of infectious diseases is useful for prevention; Timely treatment of these diseases can lead to serious problems in the lower extremities in the near future.
Make sure your body is getting enough of all the different vitamins. Avoid hypothermia, dress appropriately for the weather. Make sure the joints are loaded as allowed. It should not be excessive. Overweight people. It is generally better to get rid of extra pounds as soon as possible, because they negatively affect the condition of the whole organism.
Diets should be planned to provide the body with enough nutrients.