When the joints hurt, a person experiences discomfort and seeks to get rid of the discomfort as soon as possible by taking medication to eliminate it. However, pain can serve as a harbinger of serious illness, signaling its onset. It is recommended to consult a doctor in time to avoid consequences that can lead to late and only symptomatic treatment.
Causes and symptoms
All diseases of the musculoskeletal system are associated with pain symptoms of a different nature. Pain is a signal that a destructive pathological process is taking place in the body. Only a clinical examination can accurately diagnose the cause. It is necessary to go to the hospital if the pain in the joints is similar to back pain, and the movement of the limbs is difficult. Medical care is needed for bumps, sprains, dislocations, fractures, and other injuries. When all joints ache, there is a suspicion of polyarthritis. If the patient experiences one type of pain, then another, the cause may be a complex injury to the motor apparatus, which includes ligaments and muscles, as well as disorders in the central nervous system. The cause of swelling of the joint nodes is an infection that has entered the body (ARVI, influenza), hypothermia. The most commonly diagnosed pain patients are:
- arthritis, osteoarthritis and coxarthrosis;
- rheumatoid diseases;
- bursitis and tendinitis;
- osteomyelitis, osteoporosis;
- bone tuberculosis;
- damage to the vascular system and the central nervous system;
- osteochondrosis;
- oncological diseases.
If the joints simply ache at night after a hard day's work, you can ease the discomfort with the help of medicated soothing ointments or folk remedies. Fatigue does not mean illness. It is also necessary to exclude the stress factor and nervous tension. When deciding to go to the hospital, you should pay attention to the symptoms associated with pain, such as:
- tissue swelling;
- change in skin color;
- stiffness of movements;
- raising the temperature to subfebrile and more;
- pain sensations in the bones before sudden weather changes;
- creak when moving.
types of pain
Often it seems to the patient that the joints hurt, although the discomfort may be echoes of other ailments. And, on the contrary, joint back pain can be mistakenly interpreted as symptoms of other diseases. The initial pain in the hip joint is often in the abdomen, and in women it can be perceived as signs of an approaching menstruation. Cardiac colic on the left side of the chest can cause painful numbness in the arm from the shoulder to the elbow. Phantom pains can radiate to the cervical region and shoulder girdle after wisdom tooth extraction. However, there is a category of exclusively joint pain, which is divided into the following types:
- joint stiffness in the morning and at night;
- sharp, radiating or aching pain;
- migratory pains in the body;
- feeling as if the joint is "hurting";
- short term pain.
That is dangerous?
Acute pain in all nodes of the large joints is a sure sign of a serious inflammatory, infectious, and degenerative process that can lead to limited motor function and disability. If terrible, terrible pain in the joints radiates to the leg or arm, this may mean the complete destruction of the node and the need for prosthetic surgery. Ignoring slight pain leads to aggravation of damaging processes and leads to complications up to oncology. The inflammation moves from one node to another, affecting all the large joints. Only timely seeking medical help will help prevent dystrophic and inflammatory processes that destroy the joints and spine, and thus prevent a dangerous disease.
First aid
When joints ache and it hurts to walk, you need to immediately take measures to eliminate discomfort. Until the cause is clarified, one should be limited to symptomatic therapy aimed at eliminating or attenuating the syndrome. First of all, it is necessary to provide rest to the diseased limb and, if possible, remove part of the load with a supporting bandage. With muscle spasms and convulsions, muscle relaxants are taken, joint pains are eliminated with painkillers. Locks will help quickly relieve pain in the knee and leg joints.
Methods of examination and diagnosis.
Joint diseases, as well as other pain-provoking ailments, can be determined by a comprehensive examination, consisting of an external therapeutic examination, laboratory tests and hardware diagnostics. First of all, the doctor examines the diseased area for manifestations of the inflammatory and infectious process in the joints and adjacent tissues: there is swelling, a rash on the body, pain on palpation, itching, what color is the skin. They are instrumental methods:
- bone scan;
- magnetic resonance;
- ultrasound;
- arthroscopy
Clinical tests are necessary when an inflammatory or infectious process is suspected to establish its causal agent. Synovial fluid samples are also taken in confirmed cases of degenerative processes in the joint bag. Additional allergy tests and autoimmune tests are sometimes recommended to identify individual reactions and inherited disease susceptibility.
What to do and how to treat?
Pain in many joints throughout the body is a marker indicating the presence of an injury (perhaps chronic or occult) or disease that has entered a progressive stage. First of all, you need to understand what hurts and eliminate the symptom depending on the situation. Feeling the increase in pain, you should immediately contact the clinic, where the patient will go for a study, and then receive recommendations for treatment.
The basis of therapy is always a course of medication, at the same time as physical therapy. Other methods are acceptable as ancillary and cannot replace hardware and pharmaceutical treatment.
medical preparations
Sick joints are most often treated with conservative drug therapy, which includes NSAIDs, painkillers, pharmaceuticals, chondroprotectors, and less often - antibiotics and drugs to improve blood circulation. Each case requires a separate selection of therapy. Patients are prescribed pills, injections and droppers.
physiotherapy treatment
Joint pain is effectively neutralized by hardware methods. The most popular are electromagnetic and electromagnetic procedures. The standard course consists of 10 sessions. It is necessary to be treated in the clinic. In addition to hardware treatment, mud and balneology are attributed, radon baths, paraffin with ozokerite and healing mineral mud are especially good. For therapy, once a year it is necessary to undergo sanatorium treatment.
surgical methods
When a joint cannot be healed, it becomes necessary to replace it with a prosthesis. To eliminate severe pain in the leg joints, doctors must first remove the severely destroyed articular cartilage, and then insert an artificial one. Prostheses can be partial or complete, depending on the degree of wear of the heads of bones and cartilage, the presence of osteophytes.
exercise and massage
Therapeutic exercise will help strengthen the muscular corset. Pilates and yoga will make the body more flexible, the joints will receive increased mobility, which will help prevent the development of osteophytes and fluid retention, the formation of salt and calcium deposits.
Strength, resistance and flexibility exercises are performed in turns, without sudden movements. The optimal course is selected by the coach. In the morning and in the evening at home, it is recommended to perform a light complex of tilts and turns to stretch the joints and muscles, especially when sitting for a long time.
When the feet are very sick after a long walk, massage in combination with hot herbal baths will help relieve discomfort. It is allowed to perform massage and acupuncture at home, without visiting the clinic, but on condition that the procedures are performed by an experienced doctor, otherwise unsightly marks may remain on the skin.
popular recipes
On the one hand, the effectiveness of non-traditional methods has not been clinically proven, but on the other hand, many patients manage to relieve pain with the help of natural home remedies that they make themselves. If the joints ache, they are smeared with a honey cream with the addition of hot pepper and bee venom. The swelling that occurs with joint disease is removed with alcohol rubs and compresses based on inflorescences of dandelion and horse chestnut. Cold-pressed olive oil has an analgesic effect. When practicing traditional medicine, it must be remembered that many ingredients can cause allergies and skin damage. Treatment with folk methods is acceptable as a symptomatic therapy, but not as the main therapeutic course.
Precautionary measures
In spring and winter, a lack of vitamins leads to weakened nutrition of the joints, making them vulnerable to inflammatory processes. It is necessary to take vitamin complexes regularly. For the prevention of joints, dietary supplements with a chondroprotective effect can be taken. Once a month it is recommended to visit a massage parlor to maintain muscle tone, passing a mini-session of 5 procedures. After an injury, it is mandatory to wear a bandage, use a cane. If the pain began to reappear after the course of treatment, it is better to consult a doctor without delay.