Arthralgia - symptoms

Arthralgia is a disease that is accompanied and characterized by joint pain. In this case, its peculiarity is that the symptoms of joint damage are absent.

Features of the disease arthralgia

First, one must take into account the fact that arthralgia often proves to be a harbinger of other joint diseases - arthritis or arthrosis. In other cases, the disease is a separate pathology, which is not accompanied by joint damage.

Classification and symptoms of joint arthralgia

Symptoms of arthralgia are closely related to the types of arthralgia.

For the diagnosis of arthralgia, physicians need to clarify the following details, which must be answered in the specialist's office:

• localization of pain;
• depth of pain;
• the number of joints involved;
• intensity and nature of pain;
• duration of pain syndrome;
• daily rhythm;
• the presence or absence of a link between pain and certain movements.

To characterize the number of involved joints, the following terms are used:

• monoarthralgia is associated with the lesion of one joint;
• oligoartralgia is fixed if the patient has simultaneous or sequential pain in several joints;
• Polyarthralgia is diagnosed if more than 5 joints are involved.

Another classification of arthralgia looks like this:

• the nature of the syndrome - there is dull or acute pain;
• intensity of manifestation - weak, moderate and intense;
• type of flow - constant and transient (periodic).

What joints most often affects the syndrome of arthralgia?

The largest risk is for large joints - shoulder, elbow, hip and knee, but it is also possible that the disease will develop in smaller joints - ankle, wrist interphalangeal.

Causes of joint pain in arthralgia

If you do not pay attention to the history of the syndrome, you can say that arthralgia arises when the neuroreceptors of the capsule shells are irritated by various substances - immune cells, toxins, salt crystals, osteophytes, or mediators of inflammation. Thus, arthralgia often becomes a consequence of some pathology - toxicity of the body, autoimmune disease, tumor formation, neurological disorder, and also it can arise because of injuries or excess weight .

For a more accurate understanding of the nature of arthralgia pain, the following classification is used:

1. Arthralgia caused by toxic processes in the body due to an infection; It is known that bacteria leave after themselves toxins that give symptoms of the disease - weakness, aches, fever, and in this case the maximum damage is borne by the joints. This includes reactive arthralgia, which arises from urogenital and intestinal infections.
2. Arthralgia in acute arthritis or its relapse; in this case, the syndrome arises from joint damage due to autoimmune disorders (namely, the regulation of the synthesis of the rheumatoid factor).
3. Monoarthralgia of large joints - affects several joints at once, because of what the pain has a pronounced character.
4. Polyartralgic and oligoartralgic syndrome accompanied by dystrophic changes in the cartilage.
5. Residual nature of arthralgia after trauma or inflammation.
6. Pseudoarthrhagia - occurs with flat feet, violation of posture, disruption of the central nervous system (here include any condition that provokes joint pain).

Symptoms of arthralgia of the knee:

• swelling;
• impaired mobility of the knee;
• pain syndrome;
• with a prolonged course - deformation of the joint.

Symptoms of lumbar spine arthralgia:

• stiffness in the spine;
• swelling in the affected area;
• pain;
• a temperature increase is possible