When joints ache, a person experiences discomfort and seeks to get rid of the discomfort as soon as possible by taking medication to eliminate them. However, pain can serve as a harbinger of a serious illness, signaling its onset. It is advisable to consult a doctor in time to avoid consequences that may lead to delays and only symptomatic treatment.
Causes and symptoms
All diseases of the musculoskeletal system are associated with pain symptoms of various natures. Pain is a sign that a destructive pathological process is taking place in the body. Only a clinical examination can accurately diagnose the cause. You need to go to the hospital if the joint pain is similar to the back pain and the movement of the limbs is difficult. Medical assistance is required for strokes, sprains, sprains, fractures and other injuries. When all joints hurt, polyarthritis is suspected. If the patient experiences one type of pain, then another, the cause may be a complex lesion of the musculoskeletal system, including ligaments and muscles, as well as disorders of the central nervous system. The cause of inflammation of the joints is an infection that has entered the body (ARVI, influenza), hypothermia. The most commonly diagnosed patients with pain are:
- arthritis, osteoarthritis and coxarthrosis;
- rheumatic diseases;
- bursitis and tendinitis;
- osteomyelitis, osteoporosis;
- bone tuberculosis;
- damage to the vascular system and central nervous system;
- osteochondrosis;
- oncological diseases.
If the joints just hurt in the evening after a hard day's work, you can alleviate the discomfort with the help of healing soothing ointments or folk remedies. Fatigue does not mean illness. It is also necessary to exclude the factor stress and nervous tension. When you decide to go to the hospital, you should pay attention to the symptoms associated with pain, such as:
- swelling of the tissues;
- change in skin color;
- stiffness of movements;
- increase in temperature to subfebrile and higher;
- painful sensations in the bones before sudden changes in weather;
- crunching when moving.
Types of pain
Often the patient feels that the joints themselves hurt, although the discomfort may be an echo of other diseases. Conversely, joint back pain can be misinterpreted as symptoms of other diseases. The initial pain in the hip joint is often given in the abdomen and in women can be perceived as signs of impending menstruation. Cardiac colic on the left side of the chest can cause painful tingling in the arm from shoulder to elbow. Phantom pain can radiate to the cervical region and shoulder girdle after removal of the sage. However, there is a category of extreme joint pain, which are divided into the following types:
- joint stiffness in the morning and evening;
- acute, radiating or aching pain;
- migrating body aches;
- feeling as if the joint "hurts";
- short-term pain.
What is dangerous?
Acute pain in all major 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, it may mean complete destruction of the node and the need for prosthetic surgery. Neglecting mild pain leads to aggravation of harmful processes and leads to complications to oncology. Inflammation passes from one node to another, affecting all large joints. Only timely seeking medical help will help prevent dystrophic and inflammatory processes that destroy the joints and spine and therefore prevent dangerous disease.
First aid
When joints ache and walking hurts, you should immediately take steps to eliminate the discomfort. Until the cause is clarified, one should limit oneself to symptomatic therapy aimed at eliminating or weakening the syndrome. In the first place it is necessary to provide rest to the diseased limb and, if possible, to remove part of the load with the help of a supportive bandage. In case of muscle spasm and convulsions, muscle relaxants are taken, joint pains are eliminated with analgesics. Blockades will help to quickly relieve pain in the knee and leg joints.
Research and diagnostic methods
Joint diseases, as well as other diseases that provoke pain, can be identified through a comprehensive examination, consisting of external therapeutic examination, laboratory tests and hardware diagnostics. First of all, the doctor examines the affected area for manifestations of inflammatory and infectious processes in the joints and adjacent tissues: is there swelling, rash on the body, is there pain on palpation, is there itching, what color is the skin. The following are instrumental methods:
- radiography;
- NMR;
- ultrasound;
- arthroscopy.
Clinical trials are needed when an inflammatory or infectious process is suspected to determine its cause. Synovial fluid samples are also taken to confirm degenerative processes in the joint sac. It is sometimes recommended that additional allergy tests and autoimmune tests be performed to identify individual reactions and hereditary predisposition 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 latent) or a disease that has entered a progressive stage. First of all, you need to understand what hurts and situationally eliminate the symptom. Feeling the increase in pain, you should immediately contact the clinic, where the patient will go for examination, after which you will receive recommendations for treatment.
The basis of therapy is always the medication course, simultaneously with the conduct of physiotherapy. Other methods are acceptable as ancillary and cannot replace pharmaceutical and hardware treatment.
Medicinal products
Sick joints are most often treated with conservative drug therapy, including NSAIDs, painkillers, pharmaceuticals, chondroprotectors, less commonly antibiotics and drugs to improve blood circulation. Each case requires a separate choice of therapy. Patients are prescribed pills, injections and droppers.
Physiotherapeutic treatment
Joint pain is effectively neutralized by hardware methods. The most popular are electrical and magnetic procedures. The standard course consists of 10 sessions. You need to be treated at the clinic. In addition to the hardware treatment are attributed mud and balneological, especially good are radon baths, paraffin with ozokerite, healing mineral mud. For therapy once a year it is necessary to undergo sanatorium treatment.
Surgical methods
When the joint cannot be cured, it needs to be replaced with a prosthesis. To eliminate severe pain in the joints of the legs, doctors must first remove the severely damaged articular cartilage and then place an artificial one. Prosthetics 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 exercises will help strengthen the muscular corset. Pilates and yoga will make the body more flexible, the joints will gain increased mobility, which will help prevent the development of osteophytes and fluid retention, salt formation and calcium deposits.
Exercises for strength, resistance and flexibility are performed consistently, without sudden movements. The optimal course is chosen by the coach. In the morning and in the evening at home it is recommended to perform a light complex of inclines and bends to stretch the joints and muscles, especially during prolonged sitting.
When the feet are very sore after a long walk, massage in combination with hot herbal baths will help relieve discomfort. Massage and acupuncture are allowed at home without a visit to the clinic, but provided that the procedures are performed by an experienced doctor, otherwise unsightly marks may remain on the skin.
Folk 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, smear them with honey cream with the addition of hot pepper and bee venom. Puffiness, which occurs in joint diseases, is removed by rubbing with alcohol and compresses based on inflorescences of dandelion and horse chestnut. 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. Folk remedies are acceptable as symptomatic therapy, but not as a basic therapeutic course.
Precautions
In spring and winter, the lack of vitamins leads to poor nutrition of the joints, which makes them vulnerable to inflammatory processes. You need to take vitamin complexes regularly. To prevent joints, you can drink supplements with chondroprotective effect. Once a month, it is recommended that you visit a massage room to maintain muscle tone by going through a mini-session of 5 treatments. After an injury it is mandatory to wear a bandage, use a cane. If the pain begins to recur after the course of treatment, then it is better to consult a doctor immediately.