When the joints hurt, a person experiences discomfort and seeks to get rid of the discomfort as soon as possible by taking pharmaceuticals to eliminate them. However, pain can serve as a harbinger of a serious illness, signaling its inception. 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 the pain in the joints is similar to backache, and the movement of the limbs is difficult. Medical attention is needed for strokes, sprains, dislocations, fractures and other injuries. When all joints hurt, there is a suspicion of polyarthritis. If the patient experiences one type of pain, then another, the cause may be a complex lesion of the motor apparatus, including ligaments and muscles, as well as disorders in the central nervous system. The cause of inflammation of the articular nodes is an infection that has entered the body (ARVI, influenza), hypothermia. The most commonly diagnosed patients with pain are the following ailments:
- arthritis, arthrosis and coxarthrosis;
- rheumatoid 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 relieve discomfort with the help of medicinal soothing ointments or folk remedies. Fatigue does not mean sickness. It is also necessary to exclude the factor of stress and nervous strain. When deciding to go to the hospital, you need to 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 above;
- aching sensations in the bones before sudden weather changes;
- crunch when moving.
Types of pain
It often seems to the patient that the joints themselves hurt, although discomfort can be echoes of other ailments. And, conversely, articular backache can be mistakenly interpreted as symptoms of other diseases. Starting pain in the hip joint is often given in the abdomen, and in women can be perceived as signs of 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 the removal of a wisdom tooth. However, there is a category of exclusively joint pains, which are divided into the following types:
- joint stiffness in the morning and evening;
- sharp pain, radiating or aching;
- migrating pains in the body;
- feeling as if the joint is "aching";
- short term pain.
What is dangerous?
Acute pain in all large joint nodes is a sure sign of a serious inflammatory, infectious and degenerative process that can lead to limitation of 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 light pain sensations leads to aggravation of harmful processes and leads to complications up to oncology. Inflammation moves 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 a dangerous disease.
First aid
When joints hurt and it hurts to walk, you must immediately take measures to eliminate discomfort. Until the cause is clarified, one should limit oneself 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 using a supporting bandage. With muscle spasm and convulsions, muscle relaxants are taken, joint pains are eliminated by analgesics. Blockades will help to quickly relieve pain in the knee and in the joints of the legs.
Examination and diagnostic methods
Joint diseases, as well as other ailments that provoke pain, 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 the presence of manifestations of the inflammatory and infectious process in the joints and adjacent tissues: is there swelling, a rash on the body, is there pain on palpation, is there itching, what color is the skin. The following are instrumental methods:
- radiography;
- MRI;
- ultrasound;
- arthroscopy.
Clinical tests are necessary when an inflammatory or infectious process is suspected in order to establish its causative agent. Samples of synovial fluid are also taken in cases of confirmation of degenerative processes in the joint bag. Sometimes it is recommended to do additional allergy tests and autoimmune tests to identify individual reactions and hereditary susceptibility to diseases.
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 hidden) or a disease that has entered a progressive stage. First of all, you need to understand what hurts, and situationally remove the symptom. Feeling the increase in pain, you should immediately contact the clinic, where the patient will go for a study, then receive recommendations for treatment.
The basis of therapy is always a medication course, at the same time as physiotherapy is performed. Other methods are acceptable as auxiliary and cannot replace pharmaceutical and hardware treatment.
Medical preparations
Sick joints are most often treated with conservative drug therapy, including NSAIDs, painkillers, pharmaceuticals, chondroprotectors, 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 electro- and magnetic procedures. The standard course consists of 10 sessions. It is necessary to be treated in the clinic. In addition to hardware treatment, mud and balneological are attributed, radon baths, paraffin with ozocerite, 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 cured, it becomes necessary to replace it with a prosthesis. To eliminate severe pain in the joints of the legs, doctors have to first remove the severely destroyed articular cartilage, and then insert 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 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.
Exercises for strength, resistance and flexibility are performed in turn, without sudden movements. The optimal course is selected by the coach. In the morning and 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 sharply ill after a long walk, massage in combination with hot herbal baths will help alleviate the discomfort. Performing massage and acupuncture is permissible at home, without visiting the clinic, but on condition that the procedures are performed by an experienced doctor, otherwise unaesthetic 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 on their own. If the joints ache, they are smeared with a cream of honey with the addition of hot pepper and bee venom. The puffiness that occurs with joint disease is removed with alcohol rubbing and compresses based on dandelion and horse chestnut inflorescences. 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.
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 the prevention of joints, you can drink dietary supplements with a chondroprotective effect. Once a month it is recommended to visit a massage room 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 recur after the course of treatment, then it is better to consult a doctor without delay.