Do You Have Arthritis?

By: Stephen Smiles, MD
By: Allan Gibofsky, MD, JD
Last Reviewed on: October 20, 2004
Chances are very strong that you know someone with arthritis. A condition that causes pain and stiffness in the joints, arthritis currently affects forty-three million Americans, and this number is increasing as our population ages.

There are hundreds of different types of arthritis, and the causes of most remain unknown. Below, two medical experts offer an introduction to this all-too-common disease.

What is a simple definition for "arthritis"?
ALLAN GIBOFSKY, MD: The word "arthritis" means inflammation of the joint. But there are over one hundred different clinical conditions that we refer to as arthritis. People often use the word to describe not just pain in the joints, but pain around the joints, as well as pain in the bones and muscles that may be nowhere near a joint.

So the challenge, as a physician, is to tease out exactly what kind of arthritis we're dealing with so that we can better individualize a therapy for that patient.

Osteoarthritis, one of the most common types of arthritis, is a degenerative disease. What does this mean exactly?
ALLAN GIBOFSKY, MD: When we talk about degenerative disease, we are talking about the normal use of an abnormal joint, or abnormal use of a normal joint. So, individuals who are basketball players and use their knees a lot develop the kind of arthritis in their knees that we would more commonly see in their grandparents. Their hands and the other parts of their body are fine. This is a form of osteoarthritis.

Then we have those individuals who may have been born with a dislocation of the hip. In this case, the joint is abnormal. When they are using an abnormal joint normally, they may develop an early form of degeneration.

So degeneration does not always mean when somebody is old?
ALLAN GIBOFSKY, MD: Absolutely not. I think it's important for people to understand that arthritis is not a disease of old people. It's a disease that can be in your grandmother, but it's also a disease that can be in your grandchild. Different forms of arthritis can occur at different ages in different people.

How does someone know if they have arthritis to begin with?
ALLAN GIBOFSKY, MD: Usually, the first sign of arthritis is pain-pain in or around the joint, in a bone, in a muscle, or in a soft tissue structure like a ligament or a tendon. Generally, that's what people understand when they think they have arthritis-that's what causes them to seek attention for it.

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