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Arthritis Q & A

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This is one of the regular features available at one of the very best

Arthritis Websites I know of. If you haven't visited this site yet,

please do. And while you're there, click on some of the sponsor banners,

so they can continue to keep up the good work :) It's a really terrific

place to learn more about this illness.

~Georgina

Expert Advice from the Arthritis Insight Website

http://www.arthritisinsight.com/medical/advice/

There are many questions we have for our health care providers and so

often we get nervous and forget to ask them. Our expert medical advisors

are available to answer some of those questions. Please be aware that

the answers posted here should never replace the advice given to you by

your own health care providers. They have not examined you and are not

aware of your medical history, they can only answer in general terms.

We'll post a couple of questions and our experts' answers here every

Tuesday. Our experts cannot answer you personally, but we'll post just

as many as we can.

6/6/00-This week's questions:

The joints in my mom's hands are swollen, her hand appears red, and

she's in a lot of pain. What should she do?

Encourage your Mom to see her doctor promptly and hopefully get a

referral to a rheumatologist. There are many different kinds of

arthritis and different types may need different therapies. Many people

tend to think - I have arthritis - I'm old, there is nothing I can do.

But this is very untrue. Perhaps you can take your Mom to the

appointment so that you can help her learn what kinds of arthritis she

has and what the recommended treatment is. Good luck. -Dr

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What are the most likely causes of arthritis?

There are so many types of arthritis that it is hard to make any kind of

blanket statement about " what causes arthritis. " The question itself

suggests a simplicity of thinking regarding cause-and-affect that just

isn't realistic. The human body is an extremely complex machine and

determining the cause of any disease requires a more sophisticated

approach.

In the field of epidemiology (the scientific study of the determinants

of disease), we talk about disease in terms of risk factors and webs of

causation. That is because there is no disease that has a single cause.

Even AIDS is not caused just by exposure to the HIV virus. Many people

have been exposed to the virus but did not get AIDS. There are other

factors, which we are just beginning to understand, that interact with

the virus to bring about the disease.

The same is true for all forms of arthritis. There are many risk

factors, including many we have not yet identified, which interact to

bring about disease. Some of those risk factors are:

Genetic susceptability

Family History

Defects present at birth

Gender

Obesity (for OA only)

Participation in high impact sports (OA)

Other traumas to the joints (OA)

STD exposure (reactive forms of arthritis)

Exposure to other infectious agents (infectious and reactive arthritis)

However, the risk factors we have identified explain only a small

portion of all cases of arthritis. We can not currently explain the

majority of cases. There are many theories being explored, but until

these theories have been shown to be true through experimental research,

we can not include them in the web of causation.

There is a lot of basic research to do before we can confidently say

that we know " what causes arthritis. " That is a good reason why everyone

should contact their congressional representatives and ask them to

support increased funding for the CDC and NIH to continue thier work

unraveling this mystery. Remember that we have identified over 100 risk

factors for heart disease, yet we still can't predict with any level of

confidence who will have a heart attack. Understanding the 170+ diseases

we call arthritis will probably be an even more difficult challenge.

-Walt Hanks CHES

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I was diagnsosed with RSD a few years back. Recently I two bone scans

done and blood workup that says I have arthritis. My doctor has

prescribed arthritis medications and physical therapy. On my own with

the permission of my doctor I have joined a water therapy group. My

question is, if I had been tested and diagnosed with the arthritis and

was on a proper treatment schedule would I be better off now? My doctor

says yes. Because I had been treated with pain killers only and nothing

else, the doctor says my condition worsened. Could this be true?

In inflammatory arthritis (Rheumatoid, psoriatic and Reither's) a delay

in diagnosis can be responsible for joint damaged. In osteoarthritis

treatment only covers-up the symptoms and does not change the outcome.

-Barry Waters, MD

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