Arthritis

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Overview, Causes, & Risk Factors

Joint inflammation is the body's reaction to various disease processes. These include mechanical injury to a joint (including fracture), the presence of an infection (usually caused by bacteria or viruses), an attack on the joints by the body itself (an autoimmune disease), or accumulated "wear and tear" on joints.

Often, the inflammation goes away after the injury has healed, the disease is treated, or the infection has been cleared by the immune system, sometimes with the help of antibiotics.

With some injuries and diseases, the inflammation does not go away or destruction results in long-term pain and deformity. This is considered arthritis. There are more than 100 kinds of arthritis with many different possible causes.

Osteoarthritis is the most common variety of arthritis in the United States. This arthritis often results from years of accumulated "wear and tear" on joints, and tends to occur in the elderly in hips, knees, and finger joints.

Gout, seen most often in males over 40 years old, is caused by the formation of crystals in the joints with subsequent inflammation. Gonorrhea is a bacterial infection that causes a so-called infectious arthritis. Autoimmune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and scleroderma, can cause arthritis as well. In these diseases, something goes wrong with the immune system, which then attacks healthy parts of the body (such as joints).

Arthritis can occur in males and females of all ages. About 37 million people in America have arthritis of some kind, which is almost 1 out of every 7 people. In people over 55 years of age, women are more likely to suffer from osteoarthritis. Other risk factors for osteoarthritis are obesity, a history of trauma, and various genetic and metabolic diseases.

Some of the diseases that cause arthritis include:

• Osteoarthritis
• Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)
• Rheumatoid arthritis (in adults)
• Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (in children)
• Gout
• Scleroderma
• Psoriasis (psoriatic arthritis)
• Fungal infections such as blastomycosis
• Ankylosing spondylitis
• Reiter's syndrome/Reactive arthritis
• Septic arthritis
• Adult Still's disease
• Tertiary Lyme disease (the late stage)
• Tuberculosis (tuberculous arthritis)
• Viral infections (viral arthritis)
• Gonorrhea (gonococcal arthritis)
• Other bacterial infections (non-gonococcal bacterial arthritis)