There are usually two most common type of arthritis that affect the joints and among others wrist joint. One is osteoarthritis and the other one is rheumatoid arthritis or RA in short. Wrist and hands are especially prone to this kind of disease because they are composed of many little fragments and bones and they are in constant use during the day.
Osteoarthritis is a one of the most common form of arthritis which is a degenerative joint inflammation. Osteoarthritis can happen in cases when you have wear down of the cartilage at end of bones. This usually happens when you overuse or overstretch yourself and it affects wrists, hands knees, hips and lower back, and pain and inflammation can be sometimes severe.
Osteoarthritis has no known cure, and as it develops, symptoms and pain are worsened, but with the appropriate kind of treatment and therapy, you can get control over your symptom leads an active life, and manage your wrist pain.
Symptoms of osteoarthritis firstly appear slowly, and then gradually get worse over time. These symptoms include tenderness in your joints after pressure is applied on them, bone spurs, which is lumps that form around your joints, stiffness that you can feel in the joints after a period of inactivity or in the morning, pain in your affected joints when you try to move them, grating sensations in cases when you use or move your joint and loss of flexibility in which case your movement and motions of the affected joints are limited.
When you go to the examination, your doctor can diagnose you and prescribe you with appropriate therapy. In addition he may order some extra test to be performed like MRI, X rays or ultrasound. Therapy is mostly anti inflammation and pain killer’s medicaments such as non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs or NSAIDS.
Rheumatoid arthritis or RA
This type of arthritis is chronic, painful and disabling autoimmune inflammatory disease that causes the immune system of the body to attack the joints. Patients with rheumatoid arthritis often suffer lasting immobility due to joint deformation and pain. In a lot of cases of RA wrist joint becomes weaker and looser and that affects the mobility and usage of the hand.
RA can be medically treated with anti inflammatory medications and sometimes with steroids unlike osteoarthritis. In cases when medicaments are not effective enough, surgery is sometimes needed.
Holding your affected wrist in a comfortable position for a period of time during the day is recommended. Periodically you may wear a splint to immobilize your wrist and take it off during daily exercises in order to maintain the mobility of the wrist.