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Osteoarthritis questions for all you lay doctors
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 344972" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Don't think that because te pain is really severe, that it's too severe to be "just" osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis can be agony.</p><p></p><p>Rheumatoid arthritis is very much an inflammatory disease. That said, osteo can be eased with anti-inflammatory medications. But rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic disease, you get fever, heat and puffiness in the joint, elevated blood levels of various markers. Whereas osteoarthritis is generally caused by long-term wear and tear, in rheumatoid the 'wear and tear' is caused by the body's immune system.</p><p></p><p>If you have osteoporosis, you need to build up your body's calcium levels including boost your body's ability to absorb and use the calcium. You will benefit form Vitamin D with the calcium. I would get your GP to do some blood tests (one venepuncture should do it). You need to look for rheumatoid factor, for ANA, for ESR and also Vitamin D levels. The doctor will probably have some other tests to throw in.</p><p></p><p>Something else to maybe consider - ask the doctor (ortink about it yourself) to look for possible bleeding disorder. The most common one is von Willebrand's disease, which is caused by a defective gene. Von Willebrand's factor is needed in the clotting cascade, to help blood clot properly. It comes further along the line that Factor VIII, which is what haemophiliacs lack. The normal levels of von Willebrand's factor varies considerably, because a lot of people carry one defective gene which means they can at times have levels dropping to half normal. They make their own von Willebrand's factor, but not as much. When the body is stressed, their factor levels drop to half normal. We have recently discovered tat husband is in this category. He had a cousin who lacked both genes, they didn't discover it until he was having surgery for a hernia repair. If they had known, they could have given him a preventive injection, but they didn't know so he bled out on the table. The message went out to the family - this is hereditary, everyone get checked. We found tat husband has one defective gene which means his mother does too. We suspect easy child 2/difficult child 2 got a defective gene from dad, probably both boys as well. The only way to know for sure is to get checked for the gene, but they won't do that unless the factor level is checked and comes back as abnormal.</p><p></p><p>Why is this relevant? Because anyone with a bleeding disorder risks at time bleeding into the joints, and this causes long-term inflammatory problems as the blood in the wrong place causes the body to react to it. The joint gets damaged as a result.</p><p></p><p>Unlike haemophilia, von Willebrand's disease needn't be life-threatening. Knowing about it means that if you're going into surgery, they can give you a top-up of von Willebrand's factor. Of it there is an injury. But having low levels means you try to be careful and take it into account when you have an injury, that your blood will take a bit longer to clot. If you have one normal gene and one defective gene, your blood will a lot of the time take longer to clot but the long-term risk to life is minimal. However, joint damage long-term is far more likely than for the rest of the plebs. </p><p></p><p>If you know, you can take precautions and use other measures to protect your joints. And you can take tose precautions knowing you're not being a hypochondriac, but instead being responsible and sensible.</p><p></p><p>husband (and the kids) use a lot of wrist braces, knee braces and ankle braces. When we're travelling, husband uses a wrist brace to carry the luggage. He puts it on even though his wrist is not hurting, because sure as eggs, if he doesn't use the brace he will get pain because the unsupported wrist will tear something and bleed internally. Not much, just enough to cause more problems. Plus he has hypermobile joints (which seems to go hand-in-hand with the form of Aspergers/autism we have galloping in our family).</p><p></p><p>Look after yourself. If you can't take calcium, at least find out if you can take Vitamin D. With the insistence on wearing so much sun protection (plus you've just come through a long winter) it is very easy to be low in Vitamin D. From what I recall, you have darker skin than average, don't you? Pale skins need a lot less sunlight to make the amount of Vitamin D they need. If you have olive skin or darker, you need a lot more sunlight. I have olive skin (currently tanned to coffee colour) and I can lie in the Aussie summer sun in the hottest part of the day for an hour, and not burn. But according to my blood tests I am still deficient in Vitamin D and have to take supplements.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 344972, member: 1991"] Don't think that because te pain is really severe, that it's too severe to be "just" osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis can be agony. Rheumatoid arthritis is very much an inflammatory disease. That said, osteo can be eased with anti-inflammatory medications. But rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic disease, you get fever, heat and puffiness in the joint, elevated blood levels of various markers. Whereas osteoarthritis is generally caused by long-term wear and tear, in rheumatoid the 'wear and tear' is caused by the body's immune system. If you have osteoporosis, you need to build up your body's calcium levels including boost your body's ability to absorb and use the calcium. You will benefit form Vitamin D with the calcium. I would get your GP to do some blood tests (one venepuncture should do it). You need to look for rheumatoid factor, for ANA, for ESR and also Vitamin D levels. The doctor will probably have some other tests to throw in. Something else to maybe consider - ask the doctor (ortink about it yourself) to look for possible bleeding disorder. The most common one is von Willebrand's disease, which is caused by a defective gene. Von Willebrand's factor is needed in the clotting cascade, to help blood clot properly. It comes further along the line that Factor VIII, which is what haemophiliacs lack. The normal levels of von Willebrand's factor varies considerably, because a lot of people carry one defective gene which means they can at times have levels dropping to half normal. They make their own von Willebrand's factor, but not as much. When the body is stressed, their factor levels drop to half normal. We have recently discovered tat husband is in this category. He had a cousin who lacked both genes, they didn't discover it until he was having surgery for a hernia repair. If they had known, they could have given him a preventive injection, but they didn't know so he bled out on the table. The message went out to the family - this is hereditary, everyone get checked. We found tat husband has one defective gene which means his mother does too. We suspect easy child 2/difficult child 2 got a defective gene from dad, probably both boys as well. The only way to know for sure is to get checked for the gene, but they won't do that unless the factor level is checked and comes back as abnormal. Why is this relevant? Because anyone with a bleeding disorder risks at time bleeding into the joints, and this causes long-term inflammatory problems as the blood in the wrong place causes the body to react to it. The joint gets damaged as a result. Unlike haemophilia, von Willebrand's disease needn't be life-threatening. Knowing about it means that if you're going into surgery, they can give you a top-up of von Willebrand's factor. Of it there is an injury. But having low levels means you try to be careful and take it into account when you have an injury, that your blood will take a bit longer to clot. If you have one normal gene and one defective gene, your blood will a lot of the time take longer to clot but the long-term risk to life is minimal. However, joint damage long-term is far more likely than for the rest of the plebs. If you know, you can take precautions and use other measures to protect your joints. And you can take tose precautions knowing you're not being a hypochondriac, but instead being responsible and sensible. husband (and the kids) use a lot of wrist braces, knee braces and ankle braces. When we're travelling, husband uses a wrist brace to carry the luggage. He puts it on even though his wrist is not hurting, because sure as eggs, if he doesn't use the brace he will get pain because the unsupported wrist will tear something and bleed internally. Not much, just enough to cause more problems. Plus he has hypermobile joints (which seems to go hand-in-hand with the form of Aspergers/autism we have galloping in our family). Look after yourself. If you can't take calcium, at least find out if you can take Vitamin D. With the insistence on wearing so much sun protection (plus you've just come through a long winter) it is very easy to be low in Vitamin D. From what I recall, you have darker skin than average, don't you? Pale skins need a lot less sunlight to make the amount of Vitamin D they need. If you have olive skin or darker, you need a lot more sunlight. I have olive skin (currently tanned to coffee colour) and I can lie in the Aussie summer sun in the hottest part of the day for an hour, and not burn. But according to my blood tests I am still deficient in Vitamin D and have to take supplements. Marg [/QUOTE]
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