Why do the joints hurt? With such a question, a large number of patients go to the doctor or try to find the answer on their own. Unfortunately, this complaint is not specific and may indicate a pathology with various mechanisms and causes of development.
We will try to identify the most common causes of joint pain and find out how to treat common diseases.
Symptoms
Before analyzing the immediate causes of pain, it is worth finding out more precisely about the symptoms of diseases of the musculoskeletal system. The doctor, starting a diagnostic search, will find out exactly how the joints hurt - so the specialist will quickly find the causes of the disease.
By the nature of sensations, pain can be:
- Painful.
- Chopped off.
- Burst.
- Compressive.
Pain in the joints of the arms and legs varies in intensity. Aching and weak pain indicates chronic diseases. If the joints hurt badly, the sensations do not allow movement, then the process is acute.
Rhythm of pain
Symptoms of all diseases of the joints of the hands and feet can be divided according to the rhythm of pain: mechanical or inflammatory. Mechanical pain has the following characteristics:
- Push in the evening.
- Morning stiffness is not typical.
- Strongly felt after the effort.
- At rest, the pain is aching or completely absent.
- Starting - a special type of pain at the time of the start of movement.
The inflammatory rhythm is characteristic of synovitis of the joints of the arms and legs of various origins. The symptoms are as follows:
- Morning stiffness of the body or parts of the arms and legs for more than 30 minutes.
- The pain increases at night and early in the morning.
- With movement, the symptoms become less intense, the stiffness in the body subsides.
- In this rhythm of pain due to body stiffness and pain, anti-inflammatories work well.
Other symptoms
Pain in the joints of the arms and legs, depending on the cause of development, is accompanied by certain manifestations. The cause of joint pain can often be determined by additional symptoms:
- Restricted movement of arms or legs.
- Stiffness of limbs.
- Swelling of the joints of the arms and legs (swelling of the elbow joint).
- Local fever and redness of the skin.
- General weakness, fever.
- Visible skin lesions in the arms, legs, torso.
- Manifestations of other organs.
Depending on the symptoms that accompany the pain in the joints of the arms and legs, the doctor will determine why the disease has arisen.
Joint diseases
Pain in the joints of the arms and legs can be caused by diseases whose origin and mechanism of development are completely different. However, the most common causes of these symptoms can be identified:
- Osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease of cartilage and bone tissue. Pain in the joints is mechanical in nature, during the period of exacerbation an inflammatory component joins.
- Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease associated with the attack of the joint by the body's own immune system cells. Joint pain has a distinctly inflammatory rhythm.
- Reactive arthritis is inflammation caused by an infection in another organ. Often occurs with hepatitis and urinary tract infections.
- Infectious arthritis - associated with the entry of microbes into the joint.
- Injuries and broken bones. The diagnosis is not difficult due to the presence of trauma in the history.
- Damage to ligaments and intra-articular formations. The soft structures of the joints also cause joint pain when damaged.
- Rheumatic diseases. A large group of causes that cause autoimmune damage to the joints: systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatism, Bechterew's disease, Reiter's syndrome and others.
- Gout and other metabolic arthropathies. Often, the symptoms of damage to the musculoskeletal system are associated with the deposition of various pathological substances in the joints. In gout, these are uric acid salts.
- Psoriatic arthritis - the cause of this disease is unknown. Antibodies in one's own body affect the tissues of the joints, internal organs and skin. A frequent manifestation of the disease is dermatitis - peeling of the skin on the extensor surfaces of the limbs.
This list represents the most common causes of diseases of the musculoskeletal system.
Joint pain can also be caused by vascular disorders and neurological diseases. The attending physician should determine the ultimate cause.
Diseases of the knee joints
Knee pain is one of the most common complaints reported to a rheumatologist. Why does the knee hurt? This element of the musculoskeletal system daily withstands huge loads on the whole body, performs a wide range of movements and has a complex structure.
The knee joint hurts with various diseases, some of them have already been listed above, others are specific to this joint.
« Injured knees: how to get rid of them? - First, consult a doctor. Instrumental diagnostics help to find out why the knees hurt, but a presumptive diagnosis is made on the basis of complaints and examination.
Pain in the knee joint most often occurs for the following reasons:
- Gonarthrosis - arthrosis of the knee joint. This cause is the most common mechanism of knee pain. The joint is subjected to daily loads, which are the main risk factor for arthrosis.
- Meniscopathy. Menisci are layers of cartilage inside a joint. When a knee injury occurs, it is these structures that are often damaged. Joints are seriously injured by meniscopathy, pain occurs when trying to move. The treatment of pathology is operative.
- Arthritis of various origins. Pain in the knee joint with arthritis is inflammatory in nature, it can be associated with infection of the joint itself or another organ. Pain in the knee joint can also occur with rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.
- Drop. The knee joint is not the most common location of gouty arthritis. But this joint can still be affected by the disease. Knee pain is accompanied by the presence of subcutaneous tophi, an increase in the level of uric acid in the blood.
- Inflammation of the tendons - tendinitis. Pain in the knee joint is very often associated with soft tissue damage. When microtraumas occur in the tendon or ligament, pain occurs in the knee, they are associated with a local inflammatory reaction. Symptoms are aggravated by exercise.
- Circulatory disorders. Vascular thrombosis, thrombophlebitis, varicose veins can cause knee pain. These problems often occur in postmenopausal women, as well as in people who often load the joint.
- Baker's cyst and other diseases of the articular sac. The knee joint has a complex structure, its synovial membrane has inversions and pockets. Knee pain can be caused by local inflammation of the joint capsule or by the accumulation of inflammatory fluid in the popliteal space.
- Tumors. Neoplasms rarely affect the joint area. Most often, knee pain associated with tumor growth occurs when metastases from another organ are present in the joint. In this case, the diagnosis is known, and the treatment is already underway for oncology.
With these and other diseases, a person's knees hurt, what to do in a particular situation, the attending physician will tell.
Knee pain is not always a sign of a serious pathology, but worrying about your health is not superfluous.
Diagnostic
Before prescribing treatment for joint pain, the doctor will need to establish a definitive diagnosis. To do this, he will perform several mandatory diagnostic procedures. The exam standard includes:
- General analysis of blood and urine - will indicate the presence or absence of an inflammatory reaction.
- Biochemical blood test - assesses the function of the liver and kidneys, the state of protein, fat and carbohydrate metabolism.
- X-ray of the affected joints. X-ray is performed in several projections and allows you to detect bone pathology.
Unfortunately, in most cases, these research methods are not enough to make a diagnosis. In this case, additional methods are applied:
- Computed tomography - allows you to detect even the smallest damage to bone tissue.
- Magnetic resonance imaging - the method perfectly visualizes all soft tissues, including ligaments and menisci, tumors, cysts and other pathological formations.
- Ultrasound of the joints - detects abdominal and solid pathological formations, can measure the speed of blood flow in the vessels.
- Arthroscopy is the introduction of a camera into the joint cavity. One of the most accurate research methods.
- Diagnostic puncture - a fluid is drawn from the joint cavity into the syringe, which is subjected to examination.
These diagnostic tools allow you to make the correct diagnosis with a high probability. Many procedures are expensive or have contraindications, so the need for research is determined individually.
Processing
How to treat the joints? For joint pain, there are a huge number of remedies, techniques and folk recipes. The attending physician will help you choose the right methods of treatment.
All means and methods of therapeutic effects can be divided into several groups, each of which will be discussed below.
Medical treatment
For joint pain, drugs are often used exclusively. This is not the right approach, it is better to use complex treatment. In which, however, drugs play a key role.
The most commonly used drugs:
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
- Non-narcotic and opioid analgesics.
- Muscle relaxants.
- Glucocorticosteroids.
- Chondroprotectors.
- Cytostatics.
- Vitamins.
From what each specific drug helps, the attending physician should explain to the patient.
In vascular diseases, other drugs are prescribed. If you have diseases of the vessels of the lower extremities and the joints of the legs hurt, what to do and what treatment to choose, the attending physician decides.
Physiotherapy
The use of various physiotherapeutic procedures complements the medical treatment.
The following techniques help relieve joint pain:
- Electrophoresis.
- Phonophoresis.
- Acupuncture.
- Paraffin applications.
- Baths of Rodon.
- Mud therapy.
- Magnetotherapy.
These and other techniques allow you to increase blood flow in the affected joint, relieve swelling and increase the intensity of metabolic processes.
Therapeutic immobilization
For joint pain in the acute period, therapeutic immobilization is often prescribed. This method involves wearing bandages, corsets, and braces over the affected joint.
You cannot use the bandage for a long time, because the muscles under the design of the brace atrophy due to inactivity. However, during strong stresses, the support of immobilizing products is very useful.
exercise therapy
Physiotherapy plays a key role in the treatment of any pathological process in the musculoskeletal system. Gymnastics allows you to adapt the joint to the load, restore muscle strength, improve blood circulation and relieve swelling.
The intensity and duration of exercise depend to a large extent on the nature and severity of the disease. You should start the exercises with breathing exercises and warming up the small muscles.
Morning exercises for 20-30 minutes a day should be supplemented with swimming, Nordic walking and other aerobic activities.
Massage
Massage procedures perfectly relieve the patient from pain in the joints. What is the massage method for? Procedures increase blood circulation, relieve swelling, reduce pain. You need to entrust the implementation of this procedure to a specialist and undergo a massage after performing a set of exercises.
Operation
The key, and sometimes the only, role in the treatment of joint pathology is surgical intervention. Thus, the consequences of injuries, severe degrees of degenerative diseases, complications of joint pathology are treated.
The operation can be performed in different volumes: from plastic surgery to the prosthesis of the affected joint. The indications for intervention are determined by the doctor treating the patient in collaboration with the surgeon or the traumatologist.
Treatment with folk remedies
Traditional medicine recipes are still popular in our country. It must be said that treatment with folk remedies is not a tried and tested method, and is used by patients at their own risk.
For the treatment of pathology of the musculoskeletal system, the following folk remedies are used:
- Laurel and cabbage compresses.
- Sunflower root decoctions.
- Pomade from a golden mustache.
- Application inside the shell.
- Crushed chestnut compress.
- Rye grains and other cereal structures in the form of decoctions.
- Boiled rice.
- Baking soda.
If you decide to use any of the recipes of traditional medicine, first consult your doctor.