Rheumatoid arthritis defies race, ethnic groups and age. This form of arthritis can affect people of all ages including children and young adults. However, the occurrence of rheumatoid arthritis is more frequently seen in older individuals despite the fact that this disease often begins in middle age people.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease where the white blood cells attack healthy tissues, specifically the joints and cartilages, for no apparent reason. If you happen to be afflicted with this disease, you might be in for a very difficult time. But as with all other diseases, you can adopt several measures to help ease the pain brought by the symptoms of this crippling disease.
Common symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis include painful stiff and swollen joints, untreated and progressed cases of RA may include the deformation of joints and cartilage damage.
Symmetrical Attack of Rheumatoid arthritis.
RA is not often restricted to just one joint, many arthritics will often find themselves symmetrically effected, such as in both hands, or perhaps in both knees, rheumatoid arthritis has the ability to travel throughout one's body and is not limited to attacking only joints.
Interestingly, rheumatoid arthritis seems to affect women more than men. Research is still ongoing to identify a correlation of female hormones and the cause of rheumatoid arthritis. It has also been found that even though the rheumatoid factors get reduced in the blood of a pregnant woman, she may still have rheumatoid arthritis after the birth of the baby.
Rheumatoid arthritis may occur after childhood and before a person reaches forty years old. Occasionally though, there are cases wherein it affects individuals who are already in their sixties or seventies. The beginning of this disease is often more gradual than rapid. This is usually characterized by a low grade fever, a feeling of weakness all over the body and headache.
Rheumatoid arthritis manifests itself in different ways. One person with rheumatoid arthritis may exhibit symptoms quite different from those seen in other patients. Because of this, a physician will usually observe the disease on a case-by-case basis and set his plan of treatment according to the individual patient situation. No single detailed plan of treatment can be laid out which will benefit every case.
A number of herbs have been shown to feature significant anti-inflammatory properties. Some herbs also can be potential painkillers as well as being anti-inflammatory in nature. However, further testing of possible herbal remedies is still in the early stages and it would be difficult to tell the true effectiveness of these herbs. A number of promising herbal substitutes for painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs are shown below to harbor significant anti-inflammatory properties:.
A latex test is one of the most recommended diagnoses. The test is used to detect the presence of rheumatoid factor in blood. In most cases of rheumatoid arthritis, the anti-bodies or white blood cells attack the body’s own tissues instead of foreign bodies because of the increased rheumatoid factors. But not all rheumatoid arthritis patients test positive in latex test.
