A comprehensive guide on chronic pain, its causes, symptoms, and effective management strategies to improve your quality of life.
Fibromyalgia — a disorder that causes widespread chronic pain and tenderness — affects 2 to 4 percent of women and men in the United States (women ages 20 to 50 are the most affected) and impacts patients in many different ways. Thus, fibromylagia remains mysterious, and questions still linger — like why are more women affected by fibromyalgia than men? And why is fibromyalgia so hard to diagnose and treat? Why do some patients with…
If you have ankylosing spondylitis or psoriatic arthritis, you may be familiar with the pain of enthesitis, an inflammation where tendons and ligaments attach to the bone — even if you aren’t aware it has a name. “I didn’t know what it was called!” Monica D. told us on Facebook. “I have pain all the time. Makes it difficult to walk very far.” What Is Enthesitis? “Enthesitis is inflammation of the ‘enthesis,’ which is where…
Fibromyalgia and multiple sclerosis are both chronic diseases with no cure. Fibromyalgia and multiple sclerosis can both cause some of the same symptoms. They can both take a long time to get the right diagnosis. They’re both more common in women. But fibromyalgia — often called “fibro” — and multiple sclerosis (MS) are two very distinct health conditions with very different causes and treatments, despite having some features in common. Read on to find out…
When you think of arthritis, you might think of creaky knees or painful, swollen fingers. But if your wrist is feeling swollen and stiff, this wrist pain may be caused by arthritis too. The wrist is a complex joint that connects the hand to the forearm. It is formed by the two bones of the forearm — the radius and the ulna — and eight small carpal bones that sit between your fingers and your…
Say study authors: ‘Patient–reported joint assessment may aid in capturing flares between routine clinical visits.’ No one knows how you’re feeling better than you, but do your symptoms actually correlate to objective measures of disease activity? A new study points to yes. In the study, which was published in the journal Rheumatology, researchers followed 80 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients for one year. At the beginning of the study, all participants were either in remission or…
Doctors and patients need to be on the lookout for these additional symptoms. Axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) is often described as an inflammatory form of arthritis that causes low back pain. While chronic back pain is usually the major feature of axSpA, this condition may cause symptoms in other areas of the body as well. In fact, many patients end up developing arthritis in one or more peripheral joints, according to a new study published in…
The connection between arthritis and jaw pain might not be immediately apparent because we often associate arthritis with pain and stiffness in the hands, elbows, or knees. But if you’ve been noticing pain on the sides of your face, arthritis could be the reason. “By jaw pain, we mean pain in front of the ear, up as far as the top of the ear, as low as the back part of the jaw and even…
When you think of arthritis, you might think of creaky knees or painful, swollen fingers. But if your neck is feeling stiff or you have pain when you turn your head, this neck pain may be caused by arthritis too. Like the rest of the body, the disks and joints in the neck degenerate due wear and tear. Osteoarthritis of the neck includes these changes that happen over time or because of an injury. Most…
When you think of arthritis, you tend to think of creaky knees, swollen fingers, or a stiff hip. Arthritis in the ankle doesn’t get as much attention. While arthritis doesn’t affect the ankle as commonly as other joints, it can take a significant toll on your mobility and quality of life. “Ankle arthritis can cause significant disability and affect daily living,” says Saira Bilal, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the George Washington University in…
You haven’t intentionally changed your diet or started a new exercise routine, yet your pants are getting looser and the number on the scale keeps going down. Should you celebrate — or start to worry? While unexplained weight loss might seem like a welcome surprise (especially if you’re among the two out of three Americans who are overweight or obese), it’s often a red flag. Any number of conditions could turn out to be responsible…