Читать книгу Arthritis For Dummies - Barry Fox - Страница 47

Nearly 50 percent of those suffering from osteoarthritis don’t know what kind of arthritis they have and therefore can’t make good decisions about their treatment.

Say your knee hurts. The first time that you visit your doctor complaining of the pain, they put you through the standard round of interviews, examinations, and tests. They review your medical history and makes a detailed list of the injuries you have sustained, especially to your knees. They may palpate your knee to see if it’s painful to the touch, carefully bend your knee and straighten it several times (it may hurt a little and seem stiff), and listen for cracking or popping in the joint. If your arthritis appears to be inflammatory, your doctor may send you to the lab to get some blood drawn to rule out other forms of the disease. At this point, all your doctor has to go on is a history of knee injuries, some pain and stiffness upon movement, and a little cracking in the joint. Your symptoms may sound like osteoarthritis, but may not yet be a sure thing.

The next step would be to order an X-ray of your knee to see if one or more of the following signs are present:

 Cartilage degradation

 Cartilage overgrowth

 Narrowing of the joint space

 Bone spurs

 Bits of cartilage or bone floating in the joint fluid

 Joint deformity