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 the result of arthritic lesions. This is one of the consequences of improper, untimely treatment of osteoarthritis.
For a more accurate understanding of both diseases, the differences are specific to each of them:
- Arthritis refers to various inflammatory changes in the joints;
- The more correct name for another disease is osteoarthritis. It differs in that the lesion affects the cartilage tissue.
Flow mechanism 2 of the disease
Arthritis - classification of varieties
Arthritis is the name of a certain group of joint diseases.
It is characterized by the manifestation of swelling, inflammation. The inflammatory process leads to the creation of enzymes that have a detrimental effect on the joint and eventually destroy it. In addition to inflammation, a sticky substance - fibrin - also appears in the joint itself.
This is a pain at rest and can be relieved by exercise. Getting up from bed in the morning, the person feels aloof, in order to remove that feeling, one needs to part. The disease most often 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 that affects the articular cartilage 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 inner space of the joint capsule.
Divide it into the following types:
- Caused by infection; rheumatic;
- Reactive plan;
- Gout.
To understand the difference between arthritis and osteoarthritis, it should be understood that osteoarthritis is not similar to other diseases included in the concept of arthritis.
Stages of arthrosis progression
Osteoarthritis, but more precisely and correctly, will be called osteoarthritis, this is a chronic joint lesion that deforms over time. The main cause of deformation is irreversible damage to cartilage tissue.
The specificity of the disease is that destructive processes affect the cartilaginous tissues, accompanied by a violation of their integrity.
Osteoarthritis is a disease in which there is mechanical abrasion of cartilage in the joint until it completely disappears. The bones are exposed and their friction is already occurring.
The disease is long-lasting, chronic.
There are two stages of its development:
- Primarily, detected in 42% of patients. It does not occur due to a joint injury, but due to unbearable physical effort or hard work. Men who have been doing physical work for a long time are sick of it.
- Secondary, it develops in more patients than the primary stage and is associated with the consequences of trauma, on the basis of which the mechanism of destructive processes is triggered.
Causes and differences
Causes of Arthritis
The main preconditions for the disease include:
- Excessive exercise or work;
- Various infectious processes, including hidden;
- Any type of allergic reaction;
- Permanent damage to the same joint;
- Metabolic disorders;
- Vitamin deficiency;
- Immune system disorders;
- Posttraumatic syndrome;
- Hereditary predisposition.
Main causes and main signs of arthrosis
The background of this disease is not well understood. Only people of retirement age are sick. The disease is affected by age characteristics.
Trauma is considered another version of osteoarthritis. The joint needs to be treated with it. If this does not happen, after a few years, signs of arthrosis damage appear.
Clinical picture and differences in symptoms
Let’s turn to a more detailed examination of the symptoms that accompany joint disease.
Symptom of pain. Osteoarthritis in the initial stage is not characterized by a constant strong manifestation of pain. It occurs only with intense effort or movement of the joints. When the load is reduced or the movement stops, the pain disappears.
The person does not attach importance to such manifestations, allowing the symptoms to increase and the disease to progress.Pain begins to appear even with light exertion. It decreases if a person takes a comfortable posture.
Systemic excruciating pain occurs in the area of the affected joints. This can be associated with long walks, exercise or physical activity.
Sometimes the pain is felt after a long rest of the affected joint. In the case of arthritis, the pain is manifested both at rest and during physical activity.
This disease afflicts a person in the evening. Severe pain occurs between 3 and 5 o'clock in the morning.
Crispy sound. Dry crunch is associated with osteoarthritis. As the cartilage tissue breaks down, bone friction begins. The sound intensifies more roughly and is manifested even at the slightest movement of the diseased joint.
Demonstrate stiffness of movement. Arthritis severely restricts the movement of both joints affected by it, and there is a reduction in the overall mobility of the entire skeleton.
Disorder of the shape of the diseased joint. Both arthritis and osteoarthritis can deform the joint. But the deformation process itself happens in different ways. There is no redness or inflammation in osteoarthritis. The wrist is not hot to the touch. Deformation is also called cold. Swelling can be expressed at the moment of worsening of the disease, followed by excruciating pain. 
Arthritis changes the joint, it heats up, redness and swelling appear. The pain is acute, occurs by palpation of the affected area, the nodules can be palpated.
What the blood test will tell you. The blood count for osteoarthritis does not change. An increase in the number of leukocytes and a sudden increase in ESR are signs of inflammation observed in arthritis. Increased leukocytosis indicates that the body is susceptible to infection and that inflammation occurs inside.
In the biochemical blood test for arthritis, there is an increased number of markers of inflammation, while in arthrosis they do not change significantly.
Location of pathology. Osteoarthritis affects the large joints of the body. It will be the knees, hip joints and spine. Hence the names of the disease: gonarthrosis (damage to the knee joint), coxarthrosis (the hip joint is affected), spondyloarthritis (the pathology is localized in the spine).
Arthritis, called rheumatoid arthritis, lack of (poor) mobility in the morning is one of the signs of rheumatoid arthritis. Upon awakening, the person feels numbness in the arm area. The ankle joints are affected one at a time. In rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis, there may be signs of inflammation in the finger joints - swelling (swelling) and redness.
There are a number of other signs that you can recognize arthritis.
If the finger on the upper or lower extremity is swollen and red, arthritis may be suspected. Arthritis is manifested by severe pain in the knees and joints. Pain can also occur on the toes.
Goes along with swelling and redness of the wrist. Symptoms of pain occur regularly, suddenly increase, and then disappear. Arthritis of infectious origin is accompanied by fever, general fatigue, the person breaks through sweat, chills, all the bones ache and ache.
Inflammatory processes affecting the joints negatively affect important internal organs, heart, kidneys and liver.
Additional signs of osteoarthritis:
- Aseptic necrotic areas;
- Strong muscle tension;
- Partial immobilization of affected joints;
- Slow resorption of cartilage tissue, bones and friction between them;
- Inflammatory processes in the areas of tissue surrounding the painful joint.
Influence of gender and age of the patient on the presence of joint disease
Who is affected by arthritis
The percentage of arthritis cases is low at 2% of the world's population.
Women aged 35-50 are more susceptible to this.
Small joints are more commonly affected.
When the disease passes
Osteoarthritis does not spare the elderly, whether it is a woman or a man. Retirees suffer from illness after retirement. The total number of cases is about 20% of all inhabitants of the Earth.
Different diseases - different methods
Specialists in charge of treatment are called orthopedic traumas. Arthritis requires treatment by various specialists.
Osteoarthritis and how to deal with it
Painful sensations are briefly alleviated with the help of anti-inflammatory drugs. But they have no effect on the course of the disease.
The main goal of treatment is the regeneration of cartilage tissue. The main drugs that help with this are chondoprotectors.
With these drugs it is possible to deal with joint inflammation, regulate metabolism in the muscles and restore damaged areas.
If conservative treatment does not give positive dynamics, arthroplasty can be used.
Its essence is that surgery is performed to replace the diseased joint. Osteoarthritis is a serious and incurable disease because the ongoing processes are irreversible.
The patient must follow the doctor's recommendations on proper nutrition and therapeutic gymnastics - this is a mandatory phase of treatment. Gymnastics, drug treatment, therapeutic measures - all this leads to a positive effect.
What medications and prescriptions does the doctor give to the patient?
For uncomplicated conditions, the recipes will be as follows:
- Hormone therapy;
- Drugs aimed at relieving inflammation;
- Pain relievers;
- Manual therapy, massage sessions;
- Set of exercises;
- Physiotherapy - with the help of ultrasound waves and with 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 services of a surgeon? Patients with a completely destroyed joint that cannot be repaired need a complete replacement. Depending on the degree of joint destruction, both complete and partial replacement are used.
Arthritis Treatment
It all depends on what form the disease has taken. The methods of therapy will be different, they can be combined, changed by choosing what will give the desired result in the treatment.
Lifestyle recommendations:
- Adequate nutrition,
- Avoid alcoholic beverages
- Decreased physical activity.
Antibiotics are prescribed from the drugs and anti-inflammatory drugs are injected into the joint.
Moderate gymnastics and physical therapy are helpful in treatment.
The main thing in treatment is to eliminate the inflammatory process and improve the body's resistance. They use vitamin preparations, diet food. Includes seafood, dairy products and poultry.
Arthritis is a direct contraindication to sunbathing. Wearing shoes with large heels can worsen the course of the disease, exclude them from the wardrobe.
Illness imposes its own prohibitions: alcohol, hard physical work must become a thing of the past. Health is too expensive to ignore a doctor’s recommendation!
Predicted disease outcomes
Diseases differ in possible endings.
Arthritis is completely curable if its cause is removed.
Osteoarthritis is a chronic slow disease that does not give a chance for complete recovery.
Simple folk remedies
In addition to medicines, it is useful to use reliable prescriptions of traditional medicine. Often even doctors advise their patients to combine traditional medicine with folk. This will speed up the healing process.
When treating arthritis, it is important to review your daily routine and diet. These two basic pillars of lifestyle, if properly organized, can significantly affect the healing process.
Below are 6 rules you can follow to help the patient:
- Follow a proper diet. Revise the menu so that it is possible to normalize the amount of nutrients, vitamins and microorganisms consumed daily.
- In order to normalize the diet, it is useful to saturate the daily menu with fresh vegetables and fruits, and it is better to completely exclude salty foods or use a little salt during cooking.
- Avoid spicy spices in finished products and in home cooking.
- Refuse to use food that, in a particular case, makes a certain person gain extra pounds quickly. These foods include meals that are high in carbohydrates.
- It's important to adjust your weight. If there are extra pounds, then it is useful to get rid of them as quickly as possible, because it negatively affects the lower limbs due to the heavy load.
- Stop drinking alcohol because it is negative for the body and helps the rapid development of drug rejection.
Among folk remedies, recipes are especially effective:
- The use of birch buds is useful in the treatment of arthritis. They are poured over boiling water and the resulting mixture is boiled, wrapped in a warm cloth and allowed to boil. Take half a glass three times daily before meals.
- Burdock root is crushed, put in a jar and poured with vodka. Insist in a dark place, shaking the contents of the bowl regularly. The resulting solution is applied to the place where the pain is most intense.
Home remedies and eating habits
In case of osteoarthritis, it is useful to saturate the daily menu with fatty fish. Omega 3 acids contained in it quickly eliminate the inflammatory process, relieve pain. Alternatively, we recommend the use of fish oil, which is no less effective than oily fish.
Milk and dairy products are good for you, but the best defense is food. Cheese and cottage cheese should be sufficiently saturated with calcium. The daily diet should include enough fresh fruits and vegetables.
In case of osteoarthritis, make sure your body is getting enough vitamins. That is why it is useful to take a course of vitamins. Preference should be given to drugs whose action is complex. Some vitamins help in faster absorption of others. For sale are such complexes in which this moment is taken into account. This helps ensure rapid absorption of vitamins and salt deposition in the joints.
Proper nutrition, weight regulation and constant monitoring of the condition of the skeletal system will allow you to deal with the disease, but excludes cases of recurrence in the future.
Traditional medicine offers ways to fight disease:
- Exercise and exercise regularly. You don’t need to strain too much, sports should be moderate and only bring satisfaction to your performances.
- It is useful to swim or just do various exercises in the water.
- Wraps are effective. With the development of the inflammatory process, warm options are useful, and cold, for example ice, is suitable for relieving pain.
- Medicinal baths with anti-inflammatory process are especially useful in the fight against this disease. Medicinal plants such as eucalyptus, calendula, sandalwood oil, St. John's wort are suitable for them.
Recommended orthotics
Knee pads are used to fight these diseases. Patients who have used them have noticed that they have really helped in dealing with painful feelings, along with other methods of dealing with the disease.
The choice of device is diverse, so a model is selected that is suitable for a particular patient, taking into account the course of his disease.
Each of the models has its own specific purpose. If you make a mistake with the choice, the device will not bring results due to the fact that it is simply impossible to carry.
A closed knee brace is a device that covers the lower limb around it. They are made of elastic material, in some models there is an additional layer of insulation. The option is good when the pain is constantly occurring in different places. They are aimed at the versatile anchoring of the knee part of the leg. Provides significant relief while walking.
Open models have a glass cutout. They help in walking, relieve pain when bending the leg. They are useful for people who need to move up stairs. The models have a rigid frame, they are made of elastic material. These devices help maintain the shape and position of the foot.
Disease Prevention
As a preventative measure, it is helpful to take care of a healthy lifestyle. Moderate exercise is helpful. Quitting smoking, drinking alcohol will significantly reduce the likelihood of developing these serious diseases.
It is much easier to prevent the development of any disease than to waste time, effort and money on its treatment. If we are talking about arthritis and arthrosis, then it is useful for prevention in time and completely cure all types of infectious diseases; untimely treatment of these diseases may cause the development of serious problems with the lower extremities in the near future.
Ensure that the body is supplied with sufficient amounts of all types of vitamins. Avoid hypothermia, dress for the weather. Make sure that the joints are loaded to the extent that this is allowed. It should not be excessive. Overweight. In general, it is better to get rid of extra pounds as soon as possible, because they negatively affect the condition of the whole organism.
The diet should be planned so that the body is supplied with enough nutrients.