Joint pain is a common problem but is rarely life-threatening. The most common cause of joint pain is wear and tear of the joint, damage of the cartilage in the joints, and damage of bones or ligaments. The pain can limit you from carrying out your daily activities or reduce performance at work and school.
People use home remedies to manage joint pain while some take painkillers. The pain can be mild to severe and therefore the treatment varies as per different cases. There are many methods of treating joint pain ranging from painkillers, physical therapy, nerve blocks, and epidural steroid injections. Treatment for Louisville joint pain is individualized depending on the different pain presentations of patients.
What Should You Expect from the Doctor when You Present with Joint Pain?
When you visit a doctor, the doctor will ask you questions that will help him find out the cause of your joint pain. The doctor will ask whether you have had any injury in that area to determine whether it is the cause of the pain. The duration of your pain is also significant to determine whether your pain is chronic or acute. You will also be required to quantify your pain with 10 being the worst pain and 1 being the least.
The doctor will also want to know whether there are other symptoms that you have alongside the joint pain or if there is anything that makes the pain worse or relieves it. To determine which treatment will be used for you, the doctor will ask if you have had any allergies from any medications in the past. A history of other chronic conditions is also significant because some diseases may present with joint pain.
The doctor will then examine your body systems to check for indications of diseases and examine the affected joint checking for redness, swelling, warmth, and other signs of infections or fractures. The doctor finally takes the vital signs of blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse, and temperature to assess the general functioning of your body.
Since joint pain is most times caused by inflammation around the joint, likely, you will also experience other symptoms of inflammation like swelling, redness, warmth, and loss of function of the joint and tenderness. You can take care of mild joint pain at home by applying warm or cold compresses, avoiding straining the joint, staying well hydrated, and managing your body weight.
Which Conditions Cause Pain in Multiple Joints?
Rheumatoid arthritis is a condition that presents with pain in multiple joints in the body and occurs secondary to a streptococcal throat infection in children aged 5 to 15 years. The condition occurs when the body’s immune system attacks proteins on the heart muscle that resemble those in the streptococcus. This condition presents with excess pain in the joints that necessitates treatment.
Viral infections like hepatitis and rubella can also cause pain in many joints in the body. The joint pain will be accompanied by fever. Connective tissue diseases like SLE also present with pain in multiple joints in the body. Psoriasis can also cause a form of arthritis that causes pain in multiple joints. Some cancers like lung cancer can also cause pain in several joints.
Pain in multiple joints can also be caused by some medications like steroids and some anti-TB medications like isoniazid. Most people experience pain in one joint but it is also possible to have pain in multiple joints in the body caused by the above conditions.
Joint pain is a common condition that in most cases affects one joint but can affect multiple joints in conditions like psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis. It is important to seek treatment early enough before your condition worsens.
