What to do when the joints of the arms and legs hurt?

It is believed that the most severe pain is toothache. Although the same can be said about ear pain and headaches. Joint pain is no exception. It can make a person suffer, deprive him of sleep and appetite.

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

Prevalence of joint pain

There is no clear pattern between the severity of joint pain and its prevalence. The knee joint can hurt more than the shoulder, elbow and hand at the same time. Sensations in the spine may be painful in cases of diffuse osteochondrosis or ankylosing spondylitis. But more often people are worried about pain in the extremities.

Both arms and legs experience significant stress throughout life: weight, action, injury. Aches, joint pain and their deformation are inevitable accompanying age-related changes in the musculoskeletal system.

Pain mechanism

Why joints hurt is a question that even a doctor has difficulty answering unequivocally.

The mechanism of pain when the musculoskeletal system is damaged is quite complex. Most often, these symptoms are caused by the following processes:

1. Inflammation of the joints or polyarthritis.Inflammation itself triggers the production of substances that can cause pain. Furthermore, they increase the sensitivity of pain receptors to repeated exposure. That is why normal load on the inflamed joint leads to a strong painful reaction.
2. Swelling of the joint.Its enlargement looks like a joint tumor. Edema tissues exert mechanical pressure on joint structures, causing discomfort and aggravating the severity of the process.
3. Dystrophic changes.This may be called wear and tear of bones and cartilage. With age and constant stress, joint function deteriorates. The production of synovial fluid is interrupted and the sliding of the joint surfaces becomes difficult. Their constant irritation by friction stimulates the growth of the subchondral bone. Such marginal bony growths are called osteophytes and can cause real suffering to a person. They look like protruding bumps on the joints. Osteophytes are often injured and this causes their inflammation, closing the pathological circle.
4. Traumas and post-traumatic complications.Serious injuries: bruises, dislocations, fractures do not disappear without leaving a trace. Even if the damage is treated, joint pain and stiffness may persist for the rest of your life. Doctors often encounter complaints of aching pain in damaged joints. They usually get worse when the weather changes or at night.
5. Exchange disorders.Calcifications are deposited in tendons and ligaments due to metabolic disorders. Their violation leads to acute pain syndrome.

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

Diseases of the musculoskeletal system

The number of joint diseases is high. There are rare, isolated forms throughout the world, and there are also forms found in most people. The prevalence of these diseases explains why every person suffers from joint pain, at least occasionally.

It is important to know the main diseases of the musculoskeletal system in order not to ignore the dangerous symptoms, but to start treating and curing the disease in time.

Osteoarthritis

Doctors constantly hear about elderly patients experiencing pain in the joints of the arms and legs, lower back and neck. In addition to pain, they complain of joint deformations, difficulty walking and inability to do homework.

These symptoms are characteristic of arthrosis of the joints. In case of deformation of the bones and cartilage, it is called deforming arthrosis. Deforming arthrosis in severe form can make a person completely disabled.

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

If the joints are overloaded, arthrosis will develop several years earlier, especially if there are predisposing factors. These 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: contusions and fractures, subluxations and dislocations.
• Excess weight. Fat is one of the most important risk factors for the development of deforming arthrosis.
• Bad nutrition.
• Lack of movement.
• Infections and resulting inflammation of the joints 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 bears dynamic loads, so degenerative changes in the structures of the shoulder girdle are rare.

They usually develop at an older age. Marginal bony growths and atrophy of the articular cartilage appear. If degenerative changes in the shoulder joint are pronounced, it is necessary to look for their cause. This usually occurs due to a fracture or osteochondromatosis.

Shoulder joint pain is painful and constant; stiffness is often associated with degenerative changes in adjacent structures:

1. Deposition of calcifications in the supraspinatus tendon and consequent painful syndrome of the abduction arc. With this pathology, joint pain occurs when you try to move the shoulder along a certain arc. If you change the angle of inclination, the pain disappears.
2. Frozen shoulder syndrome. This condition is characterized by severe stiffness of the shoulder girdle. It occurs as a result of prolonged immobilization of the shoulder - when applying a bandage, providing rest to the arm with thoracic radiculitis.

No pronounced deformation of the elements of the shoulder girdle is observed. Symptoms and disorders associated with damage to adjacent structures, rather than deforming osteoarthritis of the shoulder, usually come first.

Arthrosis of the elbow joint

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

Deforming arthrosis of the elbow region is often found in tennis players, bricklayers and miners, blacksmiths and foundry workers.

Joint pain is usually dull, aching, and intensifies with exercise. No significant deformation of the joints is observed. Sometimes, under the influence of provoking factors, inflammation of the joints also joins arthrosis, painful swelling occurs in the elbow area, and the pain bothers even at rest.

Deforming arthrosis of the hands and finger joints

In recent years, the diagnosis of arthrosis of the hands has become the answer to the question of why the joints of the fingers hurt at a young age. This disease is rapidly becoming younger. Already at 30-35 years old, with complaints of pain in the joints of the fingers, on an x-ray you can see signs of the first degree of deforming osteoarthritis. The reasons for this are various:

1. The number of professions that put stress on the joints of the hands and fingers is increasing: programmers, typists and simply active computer users. And young people are especially involved in this.
2. Working in hypothermic conditions. These are tram and trolleybus drivers in winter, builders and villagers.
3. Lack of normal dynamic loads on the finger joints. Few people force themselves to do gymnastics, especially therapeutic exercises.
4. Concomitant diseases - inflammation of the joints.

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

Degenerative foot diseases

Leg joints are more susceptible to degeneration, since their main load is static. Weight and static loads are the main causes of the development of deforming arthrosis of the legs. In this area it occurs in the following forms:

• Damage to the hip joints – coxarthrosis.
• Damage to the knees with the formation of gonarthrosis.
• Dystrophic foot diseases.

Coxarthrosis

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

Joint pain can be excruciating, debilitating and disturbing at any time of the day. In the morning my movements are limited, I have to do hip joint exercises to move around.

Gonarthrosis

Throughout life, knees experience loads that significantly exceed a person's weight. This inevitably leads to the development of degenerative processes in them. If a person suffers from at least first or second degree obesity, the deformation of the knees will occur much faster. In grades three and four, deforming osteoarthritis is more likely to develop at a younger age.

Osteoarthritis of the knee joints has its own characteristics. Why does joint pain occur so often in this area? In addition to the proliferation of bone spines and cartilage degeneration, calcium crystals are deposited in the joint cavity. A sort of calcification deposit forms. 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 tendons and even in muscles.

The deposition of calcium crystals worsens the course of deforming osteoarthritis. The disease is manifested by aching pain, which can turn into sharp pain when pinching the calcification. Leg mobility is significantly limited. In the area of the knees, deformed joint surfaces, bony growths are visible, and dense nodules can be palpated.

Dystrophic changes in the joints of the feet

The joints of the feet are less susceptible to deformation from osteoarthritis. An exception is the metacarpophalangeal joint of the first toe. Its deformities occur in almost all people after 55-60 years. In women, it deforms at an early age. The reasons for this are the abuse of narrow and uncomfortable shoes with heels.

In addition to the discomfort and unsightly appearance of a deformed finger, a person feels severe pain in the joints. As osteophytes grow, protruding bones form around the toe, making it difficult to wear even the loosest shoes. Constant injury to osteophytes causes inflammation of the joints of the toes - polyarthritis develops. The situation can be complicated by the addition of an infection.

Inflammatory diseases of the musculoskeletal system

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

1. Articolar pains.It is often sharp: it burns or shoots. If the cause of arthritis is an infection, the inflammation becomes purulent. In this case the pain will be excruciating and very strong. In chronic and subacute forms, joint pain resembles the variant with arthrosis.
2. Changing shape.In the acute process, an inflammatory tumor is formed in the joint area, the skin color 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 to tolerate in cases of polyarthritis.
3. Function compromised.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, enter from the outside or from a nearby affected organ, the bone. Arthritis caused by a bacterial infection is particularly serious.
• Reactive.In this case, the inflammatory process develops as a reaction to a past or present infection. These include damage to the musculoskeletal system after flu, colds and urogenital infections. An important sign is the connection with infection.
• Autoimmune.Sometimes a person's immune system begins to destroy its own cells. Manifestations of such diseases are varied, but joint syndrome is usually expressed more clearly. The most common autoimmune disease is rheumatoid polyarthritis. It is characterized by severe joint deformation with persistent pain.

Autoimmune polyarthritis cannot be cured, but must be stopped to keep the disease at an early stage.

Treatment of joint diseases

What to do if you are diagnosed with joint disease? Should I take drugs, antibiotics or can I limit myself to folk remedies? Only a doctor can answer all questions correctly and will prescribe the appropriate treatment.

ethnoscience

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

Among folk remedies, the cabbage leaf is considered the undisputed leader. Applying it cold or in a compress with honey to a sore joint can relieve inflammatory manifestations and relieve the ailment. Plantain leaves, chopped mushrooms and vodka liqueurs are also used.

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

Medicines

Drugs 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.Usually these are drugs from the same group. Since the main symptom of joint diseases is pain, relieving it is the doctor's first priority. A good effect is achieved when using local remedies.
2. Steroid and cytostatic hormones.It is strictly forbidden to take these drugs without a doctor's prescription. They are used for all serious autoimmune processes and are designed to relieve specific inflammation in the body. Without hormonal drugs, it is impossible to get rid of pain and inflammatory tumor in rheumatoid polyarthritis. They also inhibit joint deformations.
3. Antibiotics.They are prescribed if the cause of arthritis is a bacterial infection. Broad-spectrum antibiotics are used that penetrate bone tissue well. Sometimes, if the pathogen is persistent, your doctor may treat the infection using different groups of antibiotics. This is justified even if the disease is caused by a mixed infection. It is necessary to remember that antibiotics are powerful drugs with individual side effects and strictly follow the doctor's instructions during the treatment process.
4. Preparations that protect and restore cartilage.It is impossible to treat chronic polyarthritis and deforming arthrosis without chondroprotectors. For this purpose, both single drugs - chondroitin or glucosamine - and combined drugs are used. There is a large evidence base for the use of chondroprotectors based on numerous clinical studies.
5. Intra-articular injections.This is the best way to administer the drug directly to the site of the disease. Typically, hormonal anti-inflammatory drugs are injected into the joint cavity. In recent years, hyaluronic acid has also been used for intra-articular injections.

Physiotherapy

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

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

Surgical treatment

A radical cure for advanced arthrosis is the endoprosthesis. Only this method is able to replace a destroyed joint with a synthetic one, restoring its full range of motion.

Endoprosthesis replacement is a therapeutic option in situations where conservative therapy is powerless.