This disease in a more or less pronounced form is diagnosed in 60–85% of patients over 60 years of age. Younger people also suffer from it - mainly athletes, often musicians. In the past ten years, the circle of those suffering from this ailment has expanded due to the fact that more and more people spend their free time not playing sports, but in front of a computer: one of the factors in the development of this disease is overweight. You probably already guessed that this disease is arthrosis. Symptoms are not difficult to recognize: a specific crunch, aches, nagging, response to an early change of weather ("joints breaks in the rain").
The causes of this ailment can be different: a hereditary predisposition, a sedentary lifestyle, or vice versa - large loads on the same joints, prolonged hypothermia or trauma. But most often, arthrosis is a consequence of commonplace old age. After all, this is nothing but the gradual wear of the interarticular cartilaginous layer. However, do not frivolously hope that this disease will not affect you until you are sixty: recently, arthrosis has become more and more a disease of young people.
Arthrosis affects different joints. The most common cases are the knees and hips, less commonly the hands (phalanxes of the fingers and hand) and the ankle joint. Often this disease appears on the big toe. Musicians and people working at the computer most complain of arthrosis of the fingers. Constant tension in the fingers leads to the development of arthrosis - the symptoms will not slow down to appear in the form of pain in the upper phalanges of the fingers, less mobility and, in especially advanced cases, swelling, deformation and complete inability to bend the finger in the joint. In relation to which particular joint affected arthrosis, the symptoms of the disease can manifest themselves in different ways. However, there are some universal signs by which it can be determined that a person does not have synovitis (an inflammatory process in joint tissues leading to fluid accumulation), not arthritis (inflammation of the joint), namely arthrosis.
The pain and crunch that arthrosis causes in the affected joint are universal symptoms. It should be said that, unlike arthritis, arthritic pain torments a person during exertion: it is worth giving the leg or fingers to rest, as the pain subsides. At night, as a rule, she does not visit the patient, except when the limb is in an uncomfortable position. But the more neglected the disease, the more pain comes. First, at any load, and then from any movement. In advanced cases, a person begins to suffer night pains, which can be reduced by dry heat.
Crunching in the knee does not always mean that you have arthrosis of the knee joint. Symptoms of this disease are manifested in certain click characteristics. If healthy people sometimes hear a crunch when squatting, which is not accompanied by painful sensations, then with this ailment the crunch is dry, rough, as if a thick branch were breaking. As the disease progresses, the sound becomes louder and is accompanied by pain. Reduced mobility and deformation is accompanied by arthrosis of the hip joint, the symptoms of which are caused by the fact that osteophytes begin to grow - “spikes”, bone growths that do not allow the limbs to move fully. These formations can ultimately change the appearance of the limb, leading to its shortening, and can also cause another disease - synovitis (inflammation of the synovial membrane), accompanied by swelling of the joint and severe pain.
With this disease, as with others, in no case should you self-medicate. This can lead to a sharp progression of the disease and lead to disability. When prescribing treatment, a complete diagnosis of the patient's condition is important, and you can’t get by with one trip to the radiologist and passing the tests. After all, it is important to know why this important fluid for movement dries up and cartilage tissue is destroyed: whether due to endocrine changes, cardiovascular diseases, or maybe due to infection or injury. Only a doctor can establish the real cause of the disease, determine the stage of its course and develop the most appropriate treatment tactics.