February 6, 2008

What Is 0Inflammatory Arthritis?0

There is an old joke. It goes like this: 0Neurologists diagnose the untreatable while rheumatologists treat the undiagnosable.0 Nothing could be truer than when it comes to what is termed 0inflammatory arthritis.0
Most rheumatologists tend to divide arthritis into two major categories: inflammatory and non-inflammatory. The latter category is also termed 0degenerative0 arthritis.
The major distinction is that inflammatory types of arthritis have a significant amount of inflammatory cells that attack the joints. These types of arthritis tend to cause more symptoms, particularly stiffness and pain. They also tend to be progressive. Oftentimes inflammatory types of arthritis are associated with constitutional symptoms, meaning low grade fever, weight loss, and fatigue. Inflammatory types of arthritis can also cause significant damage to internal organs. Disability and early death may be a consequence of some types of inflammatory arthritis. Examples of inflammatory arthritis are rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, psoriatic arthritis, gout, infectious arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis.
Inflammatory types of arthritis can strike at any age.

Inflammatory types of arthritis have typical patterns although theoretically any joint in the body can be affected.
Inflammatory forms of arthritis may not be easy to categorize. Sometimes it will be obvious that inflammation is present and is a prominent component of […]