What You Need to Know About Degenerative Osteoarthritis
A common disease that occurs in old age is called osteoarthritis. As the name implies, osteoarthritis is a disease that affects the joints and cartilage of a person. Typically, it affects the knees, hands, and even neck. This occurs in both men and women, but there is a significant difference in the onset. For men, osteoarthritis occurs at an earlier age compared to women.
The most common symptom of osteoarthritis is pain in the joint affected. This pain causes stiffness and inhibits range of motion of the joint. The pain is caused by the rubbing of the bones in the joint because of the absence of cartilages in between. Usually, this causes swelling in the area, giving more pain to the patient.
The intensity of pain for patients with osteoarthritis is not the same and varies according to the location of the joint affected and the current temperature of the environment. Usually, a cool climate could cause greater pain in patients. Pain occurs for a couple of hours but doesn’t happen the whole day. It is also more often occurring in the morning.
The pains of osteoarthritis can also be in a fluctuating manner. Sometimes, a patient will not feel pain for a couple of days and feels normal. There are also days wherein the pain felt is frequent and this is greatly affected by the change in temperature. Osteoarthritis in different joints can also manifest different kinds of pain and intensity, depending on the location.
Osteoarthritis can be caused by a lot risk factors and the most commonly associated risk factor is age. That is the reason why osteoarthritis is called a degenerative disease. Its onset happens when a person is already in his 40s to 60s. Aside from experiencing pain, osteoarthritis has other symptoms such as the inability to move the joints in their normal range, enlargement of the bones, and osteophytes.
Some experts would also associate the occurrence of osteoarthritis to genetic factors. They have found out that it has a genetic predisposition wherein, if a parent is diagnosed with osteoarthritis, children would also be diagnosed with it in the future. This means that as early as possible, lifestyle should be active and not sedentary. Even simple stretching everyday would be helpful to prevent having osteoarthritis.
Doing some serious physical work would be helpful to maintain an active lifestyle. A regular exercise routine is also a good option. However, for people who have lots of extra pounds, a change in diet is also necessary. If you’re one of these people who is overweight, a diet modification would be a good way to reduce some pounds. Foods such as fruits and vegetables are the most ideal food replacement for foods rich in cholesterol and preservatives.
Having osteoarthritis is very difficult especially for people who have a very low pain threshold. The pain that osteoarthritis brings is terrible because of the rubbing of joint bones due to the breakdown of cartilage. Generally, osteoarthritis can bring a great impact on one’s lifestyle. With osteoarthritis, a person’s performance of activities of daily living is greatly affected. Therefore, it is better to prevent it from happening rather than enduring the pain that it will bring.
