Rheumatoid
arthritis (RA) is a disease of the immune system that inflames the
joints of the body. If you have been diagnosed with RA recently, it’s
important to gain the upper hand over the disease as soon as you can.
If left untreated, RA can affect your ability to work, impact your
quality of life, and increase your risk for heart disease
RA
is a chronic disease, meaning it can’t be cured. It is the most
common autoimmune disease affecting the joints— anyone can get it,
but it’s more prominent in middle-age patients. In the U.S. the
risk of developing RA is 3.6 percent in women and 1.7 percent in men.
Although
there is no cure for RA, its impact can be significantly reduced
through early diagnosis and effective treatments. Many drug therapies
are now available to treat the disease, so the challenge is finding
the one that’s right for you. To begin a drug therapy treatment,
you should first talk to a rheumatologist who can design a treatment
plan based on his physical evaluation and your body’s response to
medication.
Surgery
is another way to relieve RA symptoms. Surgery for RA is mainly
performed to improve function of severely deformed joints that don’t
respond to drug or physical therapy. Surgeries for people who have
severe RA include arthroscopy, synovectomy, arthroplasty, cervical
spine fusion, and resection of metatarsal heads.
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