When joints hurt, a person feels discomfort and seeks to get rid of the discomfort as quickly as possible by taking medication to eliminate it. However, pain can serve as a harbinger of a serious illness, signaling its onset. It is recommended to consult a doctor in time to avoid consequences that can lead to delay 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 sign 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 joint pain is similar to back pain and limb movement is difficult. Medical care is needed for bumps, sprains, strains, fractures, and other injuries. When all joints hurt, polyarthritis is suspected. If the patient experiences one type of pain and then another, the cause may be a complex injury to the motor apparatus, including ligaments and muscles, as well as disturbances in the central nervous system. The cause of inflammation of the joint ganglia is an infection that has entered the body (ARVI, influenza), hypothermia. The most commonly diagnosed pain patients are:
- arthritis, arthrosis and coxarthrosis;
- rheumatoid diseases;
- bursitis and tendonitis;
- osteomyelitis, osteoporosis;
- bone tuberculosis;
- damage to the vascular system and central nervous system;
- osteochondrosis;
- oncological diseases.
If the joints hurt at night after a hard day's work, you can relieve the discomfort with the help of medicated soothing ointments or folk remedies. Fatigue does not mean illness. It is also necessary to exclude the factor of stress and nervous tension. When deciding to go to the hospital, you need to pay attention to symptoms associated with pain, such as:
- tissue swelling;
- change in skin color;
- rigidity of movements;
- raising the temperature to subfebrile and above;
- bone pain sensations before sudden weather changes;
- crush when moving.
types of pain
It often seems to the patient that the joints themselves hurt, although the discomfort can be an echo of other diseases. And conversely, joint back pain can be misinterpreted as symptoms of other diseases. The initial pain in the hip joint is usually given in the abdomen and in women it can be perceived as signs of an approaching period. Cardiac colic on the left side of the chest can cause painful arm numbness from shoulder to elbow. Phantom pain can radiate to the neck and shoulder girdle after a wisdom tooth is removed. However, there is a category of exclusively joint pain, which are divided into the following types:
- joint stiffness in the morning and at night;
- sharp pain, radiating or aching;
- migratory pains in the body;
- feeling as if the joint is "hurting";
- short-term pain.
What is dangerous?
Acute pain in all large joint ganglia is a clear sign of a serious inflammatory, infectious and degenerative process that can lead to limited motor function and disability. If terrible joint pain radiates to the leg or arm, it can mean complete destruction of the lump and the need for prosthetic surgery. Ignoring mild pain leads to the aggravation of harmful processes and leads to complications up to oncology. Inflammation moves from node to node, affecting all major joints. Only seeking timely medical help will help to prevent dystrophic and inflammatory processes that destroy the joints and spine and, therefore, prevent a dangerous disease.
First aid
When your joints hurt and it hurts to walk, you should take steps right away to eliminate the discomfort. Until the cause is clarified, symptomatic therapy aimed at eliminating or attenuating the syndrome should be limited. First of all, it is necessary to rest the sick limb and, if possible, remove part of the load with a support bandage. With muscle spasms and convulsions, muscle relaxants are taken, joint pain is eliminated by painkillers. Blocks will help quickly relieve knee and leg joint pain.
Examination and diagnosis methods
Joint disease, as well as other conditions that cause pain, can be determined by a comprehensive examination, which consists of an external therapeutic examination, laboratory tests, and hardware diagnostics. First of all, the doctor examines the diseased area for the presence of 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. These are instrumental methods:
- radiography;
- magnetic resonance;
- ultrasound;
- arthroscopy.
Clinical tests are necessary when an inflammatory or infectious process is suspected to establish its causative agent. Synovial fluid samples are also collected in cases of confirmation of degenerative processes in the joint pouch. It is sometimes recommended to do additional allergy tests and autoimmune tests to identify individual reactions and hereditary susceptibility to disease.
What to do and how to treat?
Pain in many joints throughout the body is a marker that indicates the presence of an injury (perhaps chronic or occult) or a disease that has entered a progressive stage. First of all, you need to understand what hurts and remove the symptom situationally. 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 physical therapy is carried out. Other methods are acceptable as adjuncts and cannot replace pharmaceutical and hardware treatment.
medical preparations
Diseased joints are most often treated with conservative drug therapy, including NSAIDs, pain relievers, pharmaceuticals, chondroprotectors, less often antibiotics, and medications to improve blood circulation. Each case requires a separate therapy selection. Patients are prescribed pills, injections and droppers.
physiotherapy treatment
Joint pain is effectively counteracted by hardware methods. The most popular are electromagnetic procedures. The standard course consists of 10 sessions. It is necessary to be treated at the clinic. In addition to hardware treatment, mud and balneological are assigned, 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 severely destroyed joint cartilage and then insert an artificial one. The prostheses can be partial or complete, depending on the degree of wear of the bone heads and cartilage, the presence of osteophytes.
exercise and massage
Therapeutic exercise will help to strengthen the muscular corset. Pilates and yoga will make the body more flexible, the joints will be more mobile, which will help prevent the development of osteophytes and fluid retention, the formation of salt and calcium deposits.
Strength, endurance and flexibility exercises are performed in turn, without sudden movements. The ideal course is selected by the trainer. Morning and evening at home, it is recommended to perform a light complex of bends and turns to stretch the joints and muscles, especially when sitting for a long time.
When the feet are seriously ill after a long walk, massage in combination with warm herbal baths will help alleviate discomfort. Performing massage and acupuncture is allowed at home, without visiting the clinic, but as long as 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 successfully relieve pain with the help of natural home remedies that they make themselves. If the joints hurt, they are smeared with a honey cream with the addition of pepper and bee venom. The swelling that occurs with joint disease is removed with rubbing alcohol and compresses made from dandelion and horse chestnut blossoms. Cold pressed olive oil has an analgesic effect. When practicing traditional medicine, it should be remembered that many ingredients can cause allergies and skin damage. Treatment with folk methods is acceptable as symptomatic therapy, but not as the main therapeutic course.
Preventive 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 joint prevention, you can drink food supplements with a chondroprotective effect. Once a month it is recommended to visit a massage parlor to maintain muscle tone, undergoing a mini-session of 5 procedures. After an injury, it is mandatory to wear a bandage, use a cane. If the pain started to occur after the course of treatment, it is better to consult a doctor without delay.