When you hurt, your body is trying to tell you that what you are doing is not good for you. It wants you to stop doing it. However, if the pain is due to a sickness, it is a way of warning you that something is wrong and you should get it checked out. Sometimes the pain persists. Sometimes the disease itself has already gone, been cured, but it has left behind too much destruction for the person to go back to normal. Sometimes the disease lingers and does not ever quite go away. Arthritis pain is one of the latter.

The forms of arthritis that are not side effects of another underlying disease are many. Of these, osteoarthritis is the most common, with others including ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis. The joint pain that characterises all arthritis disorders is deep and nagging, often dismissed as stiffness that goes away with a morning shower, at least in the beginning. It may come and go, and while some forms of arthritis become worse with exercise, others are actually relieved.

However, if the person does not seek treatment, the pain will gradually get worse, till the pain becomes unbearable and the joint cannot move. Sharp pains like cuts and fractures, on the other hand, start out as painful as they are going to get, and become less so as the injury heals.

Inflammation, disease damage, strained muscles, overuse or simply everyday wear and tear can all cause pain from arthritis. Along with the pain, arthritis causes swelling, joint stiffness and an aching in the joint that never fades. The symptoms are often limited to specific areas such as the back, knee, hip, neck, or feet.

The most common form of arthritis, osteoarthritis, is mostly due to daily wear and tear of the larger joints, such as the back, pelvis and spine. It tends to be a disease of the elderly. It cannot be cured, like rheumatoid arthritis, but physical therapy can be employed to help strengthen muscles and joints.

Individuals with osteoarthritis often need pain medication, especially in the later stages when the pain is debilitating and can even be continuous. At this point, surgery may even be necessary. As osteoarthritis is not due to inflammation but rather to simple wearing out and friction of the bones, a joint replacement surgery can help patients, unlike rheumatoid arthritis sufferers.

The one exception where joint replacement is recommended for rheumatoid arthritis patients is if the patient suffers from wrist pain. For other rheumatoid arthritis patients in advanced stages of the disease, other surgeries can be done, such as arthroscopy. This is where an instrument is inserted into the joint to allow the doctor to see and repair the affected tissue.