What Is Osteoarthritis?

Individuals suffering from Osteoarthritis will often experience stiffness and pain in the joints. Various medications and treatment remedies, such as low-impact exercise, can help counter the pain and inflammation. Check this link to buy orthovisc online. This article details everything you need to know about Osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis: What Is it?

Also referred to as OA, Osteoarthritis includes the most widespread chronic joint illness among most individuals. Other names that describe Osteoarthritis are degenerative joint disease, wear and tear arthritis, and degenerative arthritis. Osteoarthritis affects the cartilage in the joints of a human being. A cartilage involves the protective tissue covering the bone’s ends, while a joint is the point where two bones are joined. This chronic condition affects the bone’s cartilage, causing it to break down and tear. Therefore, this causes the bones within the joint to rub together, resulting in symptoms like stiffness and pain.

While Osteoarthritis can happen in any joint, the most commonly affected joints include the fingers, hips, shoulders, hands, knees, and spine. The spine is usually involved on the lower back or at the neck. The demographics affected by Osteoarthritis include older people. However, younger individuals can also suffer from OA. According to research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Osteoarthritis is the leading cause of disability among the population.

What Are the Causes of Osteoarthritis?

Primarily, Osteoarthritis results from a damaged joint. The damage will likely have a cumulative effect over a long period. Therefore, this makes age one of the prominent causes of joint destruction, thus causing Osteoarthritis. The older you get, the more recurrent stress you will encounter on your joints. The other causes of joint destruction include poor posture, joint malformation, and obesity. On the other hand, past injuries like dislocated joints, injured ligaments, and torn cartilage can result in damaged joints.

What Are the Main Symptoms of Osteoarthritis?

The warning symptoms of OA are:

Inflammation

Painless bone lumps or bone spurs

Joint pain

Discomfort or tenderness when pressuring the affected places with your fingers

Decreased range of motion or loss of flexibility

Joint stiffness

Clicking, grating, popping, crepitus or cracking sounds when moving joints

Note that the pain associated with osterioathris will become more intense as the condition advances. You might even experience swelling on the affected joints in the late stages of OA condition.

Can Osteoarthritis Be Treated?

Typically, the treatment of this chronic condition is focused on symptom management. Therefore, your physician will have examined the symptoms you experience, their location and severalty to determine the most ideal treatment. Usually, home remedies, changes in lifestyle and over-the-counter medications will relieve swelling, pain and stiffness.

Besides medication, your doctor may also advise you to try other treatment solutions which include the following:

• Getting adequate sleep
• Weight management
• Exercising
• Cold and heat therapy
• Osteoarthritis is usually a progressive illness with five stages ranging from 0-4.

Typical joint represents stage 0-the first stage, while severe OA is stage 4. The good news is that you will not always suffer the condition until stage 4. OA can stabilize before the severe stage with the proper treatment and home remedies.