What should you do when the joints of your arms and legs hurt?

It is believed that the strongest pain is toothache. However, the same can be said for earaches and headaches. Joint pain is no exception. It can make a person suffer, lose sleep and lose appetite.

The pain is sharp or dull, aching, aching, at night or throughout the day - all these are symptoms of joint diseases.

Spread of joint pain

There is no clear pattern between joint pain severity and prevalence. The knee joint can be more painful than the shoulder, elbow and hand at the same time. Spinal sensations may be painful in widespread osteochondrosis or ankylosing spondylitis. But more often people suffer from pain in the limbs.

Both hands and feet experience significant stress throughout life - weight, action, injuries. Pain, pain in the joints and their deformation are inevitable accompanying age-related changes in the musculoskeletal system.

mechanism of pain

Why do your joints hurt is a question that even a doctor finds it difficult to give an unequivocal answer to.

The mechanism of pain in the case of damage to the musculoskeletal system is quite complex. Most often, these symptoms are caused by the following processes:

1. Inflammation of the joints, or polyarthritis.Inflammation itself causes the production of substances that can cause pain. In addition, they increase the sensitivity of pain receptors to repeated exposure. Therefore, ordinary load on the inflamed joint causes an acute pain reaction.
2. Joint swelling.Its increase in volume looks like a joint tumor. Swelling tissues mechanically put pressure on joint structures, which causes discomfort and aggravates the severity of the process.
3. Dystrophic changes.This can be called the wear and tear of the bones and cartilage. Joint function deteriorates with age and constant stress. The production of synovial fluid is disturbed and the gliding of the joint surfaces becomes difficult. Their constant irritation with friction stimulates the growth of subchondral bone. Such marginal bone growths are called osteophytes and can cause a person real suffering. They look like bumps on the joint. Osteophytes are often damaged and this causes their inflammation, the pathological circle is completed.
4. Trauma and post-traumatic complications.Serious injuries: bruises, dislocations, fractures do not disappear without leaving a trace. Even if the injury heals, joint pain and stiffness may remain for the rest of your life. Doctors are often faced with excruciating pain in the affected joints. They usually get worse when the weather changes or at night.
5. Exchange violations.Calcifications are deposited in tendons and ligaments due to metabolic disorders. Their violation causes acute pain syndrome.

These pathological processes develop in the joints during diseases of the musculoskeletal system.

Diseases of the musculoskeletal system

Joint diseases are big. There are rare forms - isolated all over the world - and there are those that are found in most people. The prevalence of these diseases explains why everyone experiences joint pain at least occasionally.

It is important to know the main diseases of the musculoskeletal system, so that dangerous symptoms are not ignored, but the treatment and cure of the disease can be started in time.

Osteoarthritis

Doctors constantly hear from elderly patients that they have pain in the joints of the arms and legs, lower back and neck. In addition to pain, they complain of deformity of the joints, difficulty in walking and inability to do homework.

These symptoms are characteristic of osteoarthritis of the joints. In the case of deformation of bones and cartilages, it is called deformed osteoarthritis. Deformation of a severe form of osteoarthritis can make a person completely disabled.

Osteoarthritis affects any joint - large and small. It is only important that they experience enough stress.

If you overload the joints, osteoarthritis will develop several years earlier, especially if there are predisposing factors. They include:

• constant load. It can be redundant or monotonous. Static loads play an important role in the development of arthrosis changes.
• Hypothermia or overheating.
• Injuries - bruises and fractures, subluxations and dislocations.
• Excess weight. Obesity is one of the most important risk factors for the development of deformed osteoarthritis.
• bad nutrition
• Lack of movement.
• Joint infections and subsequent inflammation are polyarthritis.

Degenerative diseases of the shoulder girdle

The shoulder joint is the most mobile joint in the body with the greatest range of motion. It carries a dynamic load, so degenerative changes in the structures of the shoulder girdle are rare.

They usually develop in old age. Marginal bone formations appear and articular cartilage atrophies. If degenerative changes in the shoulder joint are pronounced, then the cause should be sought. This is usually due to a fracture or osteochondromatosis.

Pain in the shoulder joints is painful and constant; Stiffness is often associated with degenerative changes in surrounding structures:

1. Calcification deposition in the supraspinatus tendon and resulting painful abduction arc syndrome. With this pathology, joint pain occurs when trying to move the shoulder along a certain arc. If you change the angle of the bend, the pain disappears.
2. Frozen shoulder syndrome. This condition is characterized by severe stiffness of the shoulder girdle. Occurs as a result of prolonged immobilization of the shoulder - applying a bandage, providing arm rest with thoracic sciatica.

There is no pronounced deformation of the elements of the shoulder girdle. Symptoms and complaints related to the damage to the surrounding structures, rather than the deformity of osteoarthritis of the shoulder, usually come first.

Osteoarthritis of the elbow joint

The probability of developing degenerative changes in the elbow joint is low. It increases in the elderly and people in certain occupations. Monotonous physical activity has a negative impact on joint processes, especially when exposed to vibration.

Osteoarthritis deformans of the elbow region often occurs in tennis players, masons and miners, blacksmiths and foundry workers.

Joint pain is usually dull, aching, and worsens with exercise. No significant deformation of joints is observed. Sometimes, under the influence of provoking factors, inflammation of the joints is combined with osteoarthritis, painful swelling appears in the elbow area, and you suffer from pain even while resting.

Deformed osteoarthritis of hands and finger joints

In recent years, the diagnosis of osteoarthritis of the hands has become the answer to the question of why finger joints hurt at a young age. This disease is rapidly aging. Already at the age of 30-35, with complaints of pain in the joints of the fingers, the first degree signs of deformed osteoarthritis can be seen on the X-ray. The reasons for this are diverse:

1. The number of professions that put stress on the joints of hands and fingers is increasing - programmers, typists and just active computer users. And mostly young people are involved in this.
2. Work in hypothermic conditions. These are drivers of trams and trolleybuses in winter, construction workers and villagers.
3. Lack of normal dynamic loads on finger joints. Few people try to do gymnastics, especially therapeutic exercises.
4. Concomitant diseases - joint inflammation.

The joints of fingers and hands are deformed over time, and with the development of polyarthritis, an inflammatory tumor may appear in the area of the phalanges. Movements in them become painful and difficult. Joint pain is intermittent at first, but then becomes constant, dull, or aching.

Degenerative diseases of the foot

Leg joints are more susceptible to degeneration because their main load is static. Weight and static loads are the main reasons for the development of deformed osteoarthritis of the legs. In this field it takes the following forms:

• Hip joint damage - coxarthrosis.
• Damage to the knees by the formation of gonarthrosis.
• Dystrophic foot diseases.

Coxarthrosis

Coxarthrosis is a common and dangerous disease. Initially, a person pays attention to such symptoms as pain in the joints, cramps, clicking when walking. All this is temporary and does not greatly affect the quality of life. As the disease progresses, stiffness worsens and difficulty occurs when attempting to abduct or pull the leg.

Joint pain can be excruciating, debilitating, and bother you at any time of the day. In the morning, my movements will be limited, I have to do hip joint exercises to separate them.

Gonarthrosis

Throughout life, the knees experience a load that is significantly greater than the weight of a person. This inevitably leads to the development of degenerative processes in them. If a person suffers from at least the first or second degree of obesity, the deformation of the knees will occur much faster. In the third and fourth grades, deformed osteoarthritis develops at a younger age.

Osteoarthritis of knee joints has its own characteristics. Why does joint pain appear so often in this area? In addition to the proliferation of bone vertebrae and degeneration of cartilage, calcium crystals are deposited in the joint cavity. A kind of calcification depot is created. This disease is called calcium pyrophosphate crystal deposition.

At first, they are found only in the thickness of the cartilage, then on its surface, in the joint cavity, in the tendons and even in the muscles.

Deposition of calcium crystals worsens the course of deforming osteoarthritis. The disease manifests as an aching pain that can turn into acute pain when calcification is pressed. The mobility of the legs is significantly limited. Deformed articular surfaces, bony formations and dense nodules can be palpated in the area of the knees.

Dystrophic changes in the leg joints

Leg joints are less susceptible to deformed osteoarthritis. An exception is the metacarpophalangeal joint of the first finger. Its deformations occur in almost all people after 55-60 years. In women, it becomes deformed at an earlier age. The reason for this is the abuse of narrow, uncomfortable shoes with heels.

In addition to the inconvenience and unaesthetic appearance of a deformed finger, a person experiences severe pain in the joints. As osteophytes grow, bulging bones form around the toe, making it difficult to wear even the widest shoes. Permanent injuries of osteophytes cause inflammation of the toe joints - polyarthritis develops. The situation can be complicated by the addition of infection.

Inflammatory diseases of the musculoskeletal system

Joint inflammation that affects several groups of joints at the same time is called polyarthritis. If only one joint is inflamed, this form is called monoarthritis. Symptoms will depend on the type of inflammation or infection that caused it:

1. Pain in the joints.It is often acute - burning or shooting. If the cause of arthritis is infection, the inflammation becomes purulent. In this case, the pain will be sharp and very strong. In chronic and subacute forms, joint pain will resemble a variant of arthrosis.
2. shape changeDuring an acute process, an inflammatory tumor is formed in the joint area, the color of the skin changes and the temperature rises. If a bacterial infection occurs, general symptoms of intoxication appear - high fever, chills, and health deteriorates sharply. The disease is especially difficult in polyarthritis.
3. impaired function.Movement in an inflamed joint is significantly limited due to pain and fluid accumulation in the joint cavity. This swelling, like an inflammatory tumor, mechanically impedes movement.

Causes of arthritis

The causes of arthritis are varied. These diseases are usually divided into main groups:

• infectious.They develop when the joint is directly affected by an infection, such as Lyme disease. The infection can be viral or bacterial, penetrate from the outside or from the affected neighboring organ, bone. Arthritis caused by a bacterial infection is particularly severe.
• reactive.In this case, the inflammatory process develops as a reaction to a past or present infection. This includes damage to the musculoskeletal system after flu, colds and urogenital infections. An important sign is the connection with infection.
• autoimmune.Sometimes the human immune system begins to destroy its own cells. Manifestations of such diseases are diverse, but joint syndrome is usually the most clearly expressed. The most common autoimmune pathology is rheumatoid arthritis. It is characterized by severe joint deformation with constant pain.

Autoimmune polyarthritis cannot be cured, but it must be stopped to catch the disease in its early stages.

Treatment of joint diseases

What should you do if you are diagnosed with joint disease? Do I need to take medicines, antibiotics or is it limited to folk remedies? Only a doctor can correctly answer all questions and prescribe the appropriate treatment.

Ethnoscience

Folk remedies have been prescribed for a long time - both by healers and modern doctors. They are quite capable of relieving inflammation and eliminating pain, reducing swelling in the affected area.

Cabbage leaf is the undisputed leader among folk remedies. Applying it cold or in a compress with honey on the painful joint can remove the inflammatory manifestations and alleviate the condition. Plantain leaves, chopped mushrooms and vodka liqueurs are also used.

The arsenal of folk remedies is diverse, but you must remember that they can only treat mild diseases and always under the supervision of a doctor.

Drugs

Medicines used in the treatment of joint diseases are aimed at all parts of the pathological process. Main groups of drugs:

1. Analgesics and anti-inflammatory drugs.As a rule, these are drugs from the same group. Since the main symptom of joint disease is pain, alleviating it is a doctor's first priority. A good effect is achieved when using local means.
2. Steroid hormones and cytostatics.It is strictly forbidden to take these medicines without a doctor's prescription. They are used for all serious autoimmune processes and are designed to alleviate specific inflammation in the body. Without hormonal drugs, it is impossible to get rid of pain and inflammatory tumor in rheumatoid polyarthritis. They also prevent joint deformation.
3. Antibiotics.They are prescribed if the cause of arthritis is a bacterial infection. Broad-spectrum antibiotics are used, which penetrate well into bone tissue. Sometimes, if the pathogen is persistent, the doctor may treat the infection with several classes of antibiotics. This is also justified if the disease is caused by a mixed infection. It should be remembered that antibiotics are strong drugs with individual side effects and strictly follow the doctor's instructions during treatment.
4. Drugs that protect and restore cartilage.Treatment of chronic polyarthritis and deformed osteoarthritis is impossible without chondroprotectors. For this purpose, it is used as a single drug - chondroitin or glucosamine - and combined. There is an extensive evidence base for the use of chondroprotectors based on multiple clinical trials.
5. Intra-articular injections.This is the best way to deliver the drug directly to the site of the disease. As a rule, hormonal anti-inflammatory drugs are injected into the joint cavity. In recent years, hyaluronic acid is also used for intra-articular injection.

Physiotherapy

It is not worth treating joint diseases only with medicines. The integrated use of physiotherapeutic techniques (magnetotherapy, electrophoresis) and physiotherapy significantly increases the chances of recovery.

Orthopedic devices are also used to limit movement in the affected joints. These include orthoses and splints. The purpose of these devices is to reduce the load on the diseased joint.

surgical treatment

Radical treatment of advanced osteoarthritis is endoprosthesis. Only this method can replace the destroyed joint with a synthetic one, restoring its full range of motion.

Endoprosthesis replacement is a treatment option in situations where conservative therapy is ineffective.