Rheumatoid arthritis: Facts and Symptoms

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Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disorder that typically affects the small joints in your hands and feet. Unlike the wear-and-tear damage of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis affects the lining of your joints, causing a painful swelling that can eventually result in bone erosion and joint deformity.

An autoimmune disorder, rheumatoid arthritis occurs when your immune system mistakenly attacks your own body’s tissues. In addition to causing joint problems, rheumatoid arthritis sometimes can affect other organs of the body such as the skin, eyes, lungs and blood vessels.

Although can occur at any age, it usually begins after age 40. The disorder is much more common in women than in men. Treatment focuses on controlling symptoms and preventing joint damage.

• RA is an autoimmune disease that can cause chronic inflammation of the joints and other areas of the body.
• RAs can affect people of all ages.
• RA symptoms and signs include fatigue, joint pain, swollen joints, fever, loss of joint function, as well as joint stiffness, redness, warmth, tenderness, and deformity.
• RA is a chronic disease characterized by periods of disease flares and remissions.
• In RA, multiple joints are usually, but not always, affected in a symmetrical pattern.
• Chronic inflammation of RA can cause permanent joint destruction and deformity.
• Damage to joints can occur early and does not always correlate with the severity of RA symptoms.
• The “rheumatoid factor” is an antibody that can be found in the blood of 80% of people with RA.
• There is no cure for RA. The treatment of RA optimally involves a combination of patient education, rest and exercise, joint protection, medications such as NSAIDs, DMARDs, TNF alpha inhibitors, immunosuppressants, and steroids, and occasionally surgery.
• Early RA treatment results in better outcomes.

Symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic (long-term) disease. Rheumatoid arthritis symptoms can come and go, and each person with RA is affected differently. Some people have long periods of remission and they have few or no symptoms during this time. Other people might have near-constant rheumatoid arthritis symptoms for months at a stretch.

Although rheumatoid arthritis can involve different parts the body, joints are always affected. When the disease acts up, joints become inflamed. Inflammation is the body’s natural response to infection or other threats, but in rheumatoid arthritis inflammation occurs inappropriately and for unknown reasons.

Rheumatoid Arthritis and Joint Inflammation

Joint inflammation is a hallmark of rheumatoid arthritis. That includes: