During the last decades, not only the elderly have complained of joint pain, but also that category of people whose age has barely reached 35 years. Why this happens, there is no exact information, however, the problem is becoming more and more urgent every year and surprises a growing number of people.
presentation
If the joints hurt, then you should not attribute the problem to factors such as weather changes, magnetic storms, hypothermia, hard physical work. This problem has completely different causes.
So, why do joints hurt, what can be the cause of joint pain, how to treat sick joints - this article is about all this.
Painful joints can be expressed in different ways: at first it can be only unpleasant sensations, then crunching (crunching), after numbness and tingling, and only then the pain begins to appear in different ways: back pain, throbbing, burning. Joint pain is not a harmless phenomenon and its causes can be very different.
Causes of pain
Why there may be pain in the joints is judged by the nature of the pain and its location.
- With infectious diseases (tonsillitis, bronchitis), pain in the joint is pulling, hurts, as a rule, not one joint suffers, but several at the same time.
- During intoxication of the body (for example, in case of mushroom poisoning, alcohol), painful pains affect several joints at once.
- With the aggravation of chronic diseases (cholecystitis, tonsillitis), joint pains are of a flowing nature, that is, they can occur in one place and move to another.
- In inflammation, the pain in the joints is acute, it shoots and pierces. As a rule, one joint hurts, in rare cases - several.
Thus, the causes of joint pain can be different: infectious, inflammatory, intoxication and chronic. At the same time, if the cause is not traumatological, rheumatological, orthopedic in nature, then joint pain is far from the only symptom that will bother you. Other signs of poor human health will mix with them:
- Increase in body temperature;
- Fever;
- Runny nose;
- tearing;
- Loss of appetite;
- Shock in the chest;
- Nausea and vomiting;
- Diarrhea;
- White coating on tonsils and tongue;
- loss of voice;
This is not a complete list of all those signs that may appear.
Pain with musculoskeletal problems
When various diseases of the musculoskeletal system become the cause of joint pain, it's time to understand which joint is unhealthy and what to do about it.
Joint pain in traumatological causes (and close to them) is completely different from others. As a rule, the symptoms in such cases can be as follows:
- Swelling and redness of the affected area.
- The injured area is painful to the touch, hot.
- Pain in a particular joint.
- Fever.
- Numbness and stiffness in movement.
- Sharp piercing pain on motion, and sometimes at rest.
- Deformation of joints.
So, orthopedic causes of joint pain can be the following diseases:
- Rheumatism of joints;
- Arthritis (polaritis);
- Arthrosis (polyarthrosis);
- Rheumatic polyarthritis;
- Gout;
- meniscus tear;
- Rupture of the posterior horn of the medial meniscus;
- Functional joint pain;
Brief information about diseases
Joint pain occurs for various reasons, sometimes it can be a symptom of a non-rheumatological (traumatic) disease when it is caused by infections. In such cases, it is useless to treat the nodes without eliminating the source of infection. The pain will stop, but then all the symptoms will return. As a rule, joint pain disappears when the infectious process is suppressed.
Another, more frequent, reason why the joints hurt is the pathological processes that occur inside them, or the injuries suffered.
- Rheumatic arthritis (polaritis)- a disease, the catalyst of which are serious infectious diseases: tonsillitis, rubella, influenza, brucellosis. Large joints are usually affected, while the lesion is symmetrical: two elbow or knee joints at once. Joint pain is accompanied by high temperature and fever during the exacerbation period, which practically does not happen with other joint diseases.
- Arthrosis (polyarthrosis)- pathological processes leading to partial or complete destruction (with advanced forms of the disease) of cartilage. Joint pain is associated with impaired joint motor activity. The symptoms of arthrosis and arthritis are similar, but there is a difference: an injured place with arthrosis hurts when you try to move, which cannot be said about arthritis (with it, the joint hurts even at rest).
- Arthritis- degenerative processes occurring in the joint, associated with inflammation of the joint tissue and its deformation.
- gout- a violation of the metabolism of calcium and salt in the body, due to which growths appear in the joints, which become inflamed and hurt. Characteristic features - pain at night.
- meniscus tear- Injury of the knee (or scapula), accompanied by a violation of the integrity of the meniscus. The pain in such cases occurs in the knee and gives back to him, when you move, you can hear a crack in the joint.
- Functional joint pain occurs whendisorders of the nervous system, there is no point in doing anything with the articulation, as the problem must be sought elsewhere. When it is eliminated, the discomfort will pass.
This, of course, is an incomplete list of why joints hurt, however, these reasons are the most common. What should be done in such situations should be decided only by the doctor after a thorough examination and diagnosis.
Treatment
The treatment of joint pain is rather a secondary task, the first goal is usually the elimination of inflammation and the causes of its occurrence.
It is important for the patient to understand that self-medication will not help him in any way and will only delay the treatment process, worsening the situation.All a person with pain needs to do is visit a doctor.If it happens that the feeling of stiffness and pain in the joints appears at night and does not allow you to fall asleep, then you can drink an anesthetic and rub with a warming ointment as needed.
The doctor begins the treatment of joint pain only after a complete examination, receiving the results of the examination and making a diagnosis.
Most orthopedic diseases are treated with traditional methods, and the use of surgical methods is performed only as a last resort, when a long course of drug treatment has proved ineffective.
Medical treatment (conservative method)
Conservative methods are the most popular in this case.
No single treatment for such diseases was complete without an appointment:
- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which are used in different dosage forms: ointments, injections, tablets, patches, suppositories. At the same time, it is not unusual for a doctor to decide to prescribe NSAIDs in several forms at once: injections and ointments, tablets and suppositories with ointments. The admission course is very long, the treatment conditions are determined taking into account the individual characteristics of a person: age, physical. When prescribing, the presence of other diseases, contraindications and possible side effects should be taken into account.
- Painkillersused in different dosage forms. With a pronounced pain syndrome, powerful injections are prescribed, if it hurts a little, then it is quite possible to go with pills, heating oils, patches.
If NSAIDs did not help, then refer to:
- Corticosteroidswhich have both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of treatment with these drugs are that the effect can be achieved much faster than nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and hormone deficiency, which do not have a very favorable effect on the organism as a whole and lead to unpleasant consequences. in the form of hormonal imbalance, weight gain. Therefore, doctors are not in a hurry to prescribe corticosteroids.
- Chondroprotectors, which are injected into the affected area to optimize the level of synovial fluid, to normalize the friction, pressure and movement of the joint.
After completing the course of drug treatment, you can continue it with folk remedies.
Fine-tune the treatment:
- Massage therapy;
- Gymnastics, swimming;
- Physiotherapy.
An important role is played by preventing the recurrence of the disease; for this, a course of prophylactic treatment in the form of taking vitamins is carried out twice a year.and NSAIDs.
Operational Methods
If conservative treatment proved ineffective and the joint still hurts, then surgery is prescribed, which surgery will be performed, depending on the degree of tissue damage and the diagnosis. If this is arthrosis in the third stage, then it is worth making prosthetics, that is, replacing the joint with an artificial one. If we are talking about a rupture of the meniscus, then with the help of special punctures, it is sewn together. In any case, doctors will do everything possible to avoid surgery and the pain is stopped no matter what.
Conclusion
Thus, the joint can be injured for various reasons, it can be infectious and neurological problems. Joint pain is the main cause of pain. Don't ignore the pain by trying to heal yourself or by numbing the pain with painkillers.
There are two main methods of tissue treatment:
- conservative method.
- Operative method of treatment.
Quite rare are the cases when surgical methods begin the treatment immediately, without resorting to conservative methods. However, such cases also occur, for example, if a person is immobilized, and the degeneration processes are at such a stage that it is useless to treat with drugs. In such cases, it hurts so much that a person can lose consciousness from the intensity of the pain.