What is the difference between arthritis and osteoarthritis

What is the difference between arthritis and osteoarthritis?

Many people confuse names because they don't know the difference.

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 arthritic lesions. This is one of the consequences of inadequate and premature treatment of osteoarthritis.

For a more accurate understanding of both diseases, the differences are specific to each:

• Arthritis refers to several inflammatory changes in the joints;
• A more correct name for the second disease is osteoarthritis. It is different because the lesion affects the cartilage tissue.

The mechanism of the course of 2 diseases

Arthritis - classification of varieties

Arthritis is the name of a specific group of joint diseases.

It is characterized by the manifestation of swelling and inflammation. The inflammatory process leads to the production of enzymes that have a damaging effect on the joint and eventually destroy it. In addition to inflammation, an adhesive substance appears on the joint itself - fibrin.

This is pain at rest and can be relieved with exercise. Getting out of bed in the morning, the person feels adamant, to get rid of this sensation he needs to disperse. Most of the time, the disease 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 in which the articular cartilage is affected is called degenerative arthritis. Cartilage is used to connect and move bones.

There are several types:

• Osteoarthritis;
• Traumatic arthritis.

The inflammatory course of the disease is characterized by damage not to cartilage, but to connective tissue. Inflammation occurs in the internal space of the joint capsule.

Divide it into the following types:

• Caused by an infection;
• Rheumatic;
• Reactive plan;
• Drop.

To understand the difference between arthritis and osteoarthritis, one must understand how osteoarthritis is not similar to other diseases included in the concept of arthritis.

Arthrosis progression stages

Osteoarthritis, but more precisely and more correctly, will be called osteoarthritis, it is a chronic injury of the joints, which deforms over time. The main cause of the deformity is irreversible damage to the cartilage tissue.

The specificity of the disease is that destructive processes affect cartilage tissues, followed by a violation of their integrity.

Arthrosis is a disease in which mechanical abrasion of the joint cartilage occurs until its complete disappearance. The bones are exposed and their friction already occurs.

The disease is chronic for a long time.

There are 2 stages of its development:

• Primary, detected in 42% of patients. It does not occur due to joint damage, but due to excessive physical effort or hard work. Men who have been engaged in manual labor for a long time are sick.
• Secondary, develops in more patients than the primary stage and is associated with the consequences of trauma, on the basis of which the destructive process mechanism is triggered.

Reasons and differences

Causes of arthritis

The main prerequisites of the disease can be classified:

• Exercise or excessive work;
• Various infectious processes, including hidden ones;
• Any type of allergic reaction;
• Permanent damage to the same joint;
• Metabolism disorders;
• Lack of vitamins;
• Immune system diseases;
• Post-traumatic syndrome;
• Hereditary predisposition.

Root causes and main signs of arthrosis

The history of this disease is not well understood. Only people of retirement age are ill. The disease is influenced by age characteristics.

Trauma is considered another version of arthrosis. The articulation with it must be treated. If not, after a few years, signs of damage to the osteoarthritis appear.

Clinical presentation and differences in symptoms

Let's take a closer look at the symptoms that accompany joint disease.

Symptom of pain. Arthrosis in the initial phase is not characterized by a strong constant manifestation of pain. It appears only with intense effort or joint movement. When the load decreases or the movement stops, the pain goes away.

The person ignores such manifestations, allowing symptoms to increase and the disease to progress.The pain starts to appear even with small efforts. Decreases if the person adopts a comfortable posture.

Systemic painful pain occurs in the area of ​​the affected joints. This can be associated with long walks, exercises or physical activities.

Sometimes pain is felt after a long period of rest in the affected joint. If it is arthritis, the pain manifests itself both at rest and during physical activity.

This disease torments a person at dawn. The intense pain occurs between 3 and 5 in the morning.

Crunchy sound. Dry grinding is associated with arthrosis. As the cartilage tissue breaks, bone friction begins. The sound becomes more coarse and intensifies, manifesting itself at the slightest movement of the diseased joint.

Demonstrates rigidity of movement. Arthritis strongly restricts the movement of both joints affected by it and there is a decrease in the general mobility of the entire skeleton.

Disorder of the shape of the diseased joint. Both arthritis and arthrosis can deform a joint. But the deformation process itself occurs in different ways. In arthrosis, there is no redness or inflammation. The gasket is not hot to the touch. Deformation is also called cold. The swelling can manifest itself at the time of the exacerbation of the disease, accompanied by acute pain. Arthritis alters the joint, becomes hot, redness and swelling appear. Pain is acute, it occurs on palpation of the affected area, nodular formations can be palpated.

What the blood test will tell you. Blood counts for arthrosis do not change. An increase in the number of leukocytes and a marked increase in ESR are signs of inflammation that are seen in arthritis. The increase in leukocytosis indicates that the body is susceptible to infections and inflammation occurs inside.

In the biochemical blood test for arthritis, there is an increase in the number of inflammation markers, while in arthrosis they do not change significantly.

Location of the pathology. Osteoarthritis affects the large joints in the body. These will be the knees, hip joints and spine. The names of the disease come from that: gonarthrosis (injury to the knee joint), coxarthrosis (the hip joint is affected), spondyloarthrosis (the pathology is located in the spine).

Arthritis, called rheumatoid arthritis, lack of (weak) mobility in the morning - one of the signs of rheumatoid arthritis. After waking up, the person feels stiffness in the hand area. The wrist joints are affected one at a time and both at the same time. In rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis, there may be signs of inflammation in the joints of the fingers - swelling (swelling) and redness.

There are several other signs by which arthritis can be recognized.

If a finger on an upper or lower limb swells and turns red, arthritis may be suspected. Arthritis manifests itself as severe pain in the knees and ankles. Pain can also occur in the big toes.

Accompanies joint swelling and redness. Pain symptoms occur regularly, suddenly increasing and then disappearing. Infectious arthritis is accompanied by an increase in body temperature, general fatigue, a person begins to sweat, chills, all bones hurt and ache.

The inflammatory processes that affect the joints have a negative effect on important internal organs, such as the heart, kidneys and liver.

Additional signs of arthrosis:

• Aseptic necrotic areas;
• Strong muscular tension;
• Partial immobilization of the affected joints;
• Slow resorption of cartilage tissue, bones and friction between them;
• Inflammatory processes in the tissue areas around the painful joint.

Influence of patient's gender and age in the presence of joint disease

Who is affected by arthritis

The percentage of arthritis cases is low and reaches 2% of the entire population of the world.

Women “35-50 years old” are more susceptible.

Small joints are most frequently affected.

Who the disease dominates

Osteoarthritis does not spare the elderly, whether women or men. Retirees fall ill after retirement. The total number of cases is about 20% of all Earth's inhabitants.

Different diseases - different methods

The specialists responsible for treatment are called orthopedic trauma surgeons. Arthritis requires treatment from different specialists.

Arthrosis and how to deal with it

Painful sensations are relieved for a short time with the help of anti-inflammatories. But they do not affect the course of the disease.

The main goal of treatment is the regeneration of cartilage tissue. The main drugs that help do this are condoprotectors.

With the help of these drugs, it is possible to deal with joint inflammation, regulate metabolism in the muscles and restore damaged areas.

If conservative treatment does not show positive dynamics, arthroplasty can be used.

Its essence lies in the fact that surgery is performed to replace the diseased joint. Arthrosis is a serious and incurable disease, as ongoing processes are irreversible.

The patient should follow the doctor's recommendations on proper nutrition and corrective gymnastics - this is a mandatory treatment step. Gymnastics, drug treatment, therapeutic measures - all of these have a positive effect.

What medications and prescriptions does the doctor give the patient?

For uncomplicated conditions, the prescriptions will be as follows:

• Hormone therapy;
• Medicines to relieve inflammation;
• Analgesics;
• Manual therapy, massage sessions;
• Set of exercises;
• Physiotherapy - using ultrasonic waves and the use of thermal methods.

The complicated course of the disease will require additional medication. Sometimes doctors insist on removing the problem surgically.

Who needs the service of a surgeon? Patients with a completely destroyed joint that cannot be restored need a complete replacement. Depending on the degree of joint destruction, both full and partial replacement are used.

Treatment for arthritis

It all depends on the form the disease took. The methods of therapy will be different, they can be combined, changed, choosing the one that will give the desired result in the treatment.

Lifestyle recommendations:

1. Proper nutrition,
2. Avoiding alcoholic beverages
3. Decreased physical activity.

Of the drugs, antibiotics are prescribed and anti-inflammatory drugs are injected into the joint.

Moderate gymnastics and physical therapy are helpful in treatment.

The main thing in the treatment is to remove the inflammatory process and improve the resistance of the body. They use vitamin preparations, dietary foods. Includes seafood, dairy and poultry.

Arthritis is a direct contraindication to sunbathing. The use of shoes with wide heels can aggravate the course of the disease, excluding them from the wardrobe.

The disease imposes its own prohibitions: alcohol, heavy physical work must become a thing of the past. Health is too expensive to ignore doctors' recommendations!

Predicted outcomes of the disease

Diseases differ in their possible endings.

Arthritis is completely curable if its cause is eliminated.

Osteoarthritis is a slow chronic disease that does not offer a chance for complete recovery.

Simple popular solutions

In addition to drug treatment, it is useful to use reliable recipes from 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 2 essential pillars of lifestyle, if well organized, can significantly influence the healing process.

Below are 6 rules you can follow to help a patient:

1. Observe the correct diet. Review the menu so that it is possible to normalize the amount of nutrients, vitamins and microorganisms consumed per day.
2. To normalize the diet, it is useful to saturate the daily menu with fresh vegetables and fruits, and it is preferable to completely exclude salty foods or to use little salt during cooking.
3. Avoid hot spices in ready-made products and homemade food.
4. Refuse to use foods of which, in a particular case, a particular person is gaining weight quickly. These foods include meals rich in carbohydrates.
5. It is important to adjust the weight. If there are extra pounds, it is useful to get rid of them as soon as possible, as this has a negative effect on the lower limbs due to the heavy load.
6. Avoid alcohol consumption because it is negative for the body and helps in the rapid development of drug rejection.

Among folk remedies, recipes are especially effective:

1. The use of birch buds is useful in the treatment of arthritis. They are poured into boiling water and the resulting mixture is boiled, wrapped in a warm cloth and left to infuse. Take half a glass three times a day before meals.
2. Burdock root is chopped, placed in a jar and watered with vodka. Insist in a dark place, regularly shaking the contents of the container. The resulting solution is blurred with the place where the pain is most intense.

Home remedies and nutritional habits

In case of arthrosis, it is useful to saturate the daily menu with oily fish. The omega 3 acids contained in it quickly eliminate the inflammatory process, relieve pain. As an alternative, 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 better. Cheese and curd must be sufficiently saturated with calcium. The daily diet should contain enough fresh fruits and vegetables.

In case of osteoarthritis, make sure that the body receives enough vitamins. For this it is useful to drink a course of vitamins. Preference should be given to drugs whose action is complex. Some vitamins help faster absorption of others. There are such complexes for sale in which this moment is taken into account. This helps to ensure that vitamins are quickly absorbed and that deposition of salt does not occur in the joints.

Proper nutrition, weight control and constant monitoring of the state of the skeletal system will allow you to cope with the disease, but will exclude cases of relapse in the future.

Traditional medicine offers ways to fight the disease:

1. Exercise regularly. You don't have to try too hard, sports should be moderate and bring only pleasure to your performance.
2. It is useful to go swimming or just do several exercises in the water.
3. Compresses are effective. With the development of the inflammatory process, hot options are useful, and cold, for example, ice, is suitable for pain relief.
4. Curative baths with an anti-inflammatory process are especially useful in combating this disease. For them, medicinal plants such as eucalyptus, marigold, sandalwood oil, St. John's wort are suitable.

Recommended orthoses

Knee pads are used to fight these diseases. The patients who used them noticed that they really helped to deal with painful sensations, along with other methods of dealing with the disease.

The choice of devices is varied, so an appropriate model is selected for a given patient, taking into account the course of their illness.

Each model has its own specific purpose. If you make a mistake, the device will not bring results because it is simply impossible to use.

A closed knee brace is a device that covers the lower limb around it. They are made of elastic material, in some models an additional layer of insulation is provided. The option is good when the pain constantly occurs in different places. They aim at general anchoring of the knee part of the leg. Provides significant relief while walking.

Open models have a cup cutout. They help to walk, relieve pain when bending the leg. They are useful for people who need to climb stairs. The models have a rigid frame, are made of elastic material. These devices help to maintain the shape and position of the leg.

Disease prevention

As a preventive measure, it is useful to take care of a healthy lifestyle. Moderate exercise on a regular basis is beneficial. Quitting smoking and drinking alcohol will significantly reduce the likelihood of developing these serious illnesses.

It is much easier to prevent the development of any disease than to waste time, effort and money on its treatment. If we talk about arthritis and arthrosis, then, for prevention, it is useful to treat all types of infectious diseases in a timely and complete manner; premature treatment of these diseases may soon lead to the development of serious problems in the lower extremities.

Make sure that the body is getting sufficient amounts of all varieties of vitamins. Avoid hypothermia, dress for the weather. Make sure that the joints are loaded to the permitted point. It shouldn't be excessive. Overweight people. It is usually best to get rid of the extra pounds as soon as possible, because they have a negative effect on the state of the entire body.

Diets should be planned so that sufficient nutrients are supplied to the body.