Symptoms | Rheumatism

Symptoms

Since rheumatism is only a generic term for the various clinical pictures, you will find more detailed information on the signs and symptoms of the individual clinical pictures (see above). First of all, almost all rheumatoid illnesses show quite unspecific general symptoms. These usually consist of fatigue, sometimes also fever, night sweats and muscle pain.

In the case of joint complaints, it is typical for most forms of rheumatism that the pain is worse in the morning and movement is more restricted in the morning than in the evening. This is called morning stiffness. At the beginning of a rheumatoid arthritis, asymmetrical joint involvement of the body occurs.

Here above all the metacarpals of a hand or the finger joints of a finger are concerned. In the further course of the disease, the left and right sides of the body are affected symmetrically. Also typical are the often pressure-painful and swollen, sometimes also reddened joints.

So if the finger joints are swollen and reddened over several weeks and are stiff in the morning, it can be rheumatism. In the meantime only completely rarely also so-called rheumatic nodes are found in the proximity of the joint concerned. These are rough hardenings that are usually not painful.

Sometimes, especially with acute rheumatic attacks, nail changes can also become visible. Rheumatic inflammations of the vertebral bodies of the spine are mainly noticeable through impaired movement and sometimes severe pain. The heart, lungs, kidneys and eyes can also be affected by rheumatological diseases.

Corresponding functional restrictions usually lead patients to a doctor. In addition it can come to a tendon inflammation with rheumatism. Diagnostics include not only a physical examination but also blood tests.

Here it is particularly noticeable that the inflammation values can be many times higher. Also certain blood components, among other things the rheumatism factor and different other autoantibodies, can be usually proven in the blood. With the rheumatological illnesses the fingers are particularly frequently concerned.

The finger joints can thicken and also become red. The moreover one it can come also within this range to a morning rigidity, i.e. the joints are usually longer than 30 minutes painful and with difficulty mobile. The infestation of certain finger joints is characteristic for the individual diseases.

Thus it comes z.B. with the rheumatoid arthritis never to the attack of the thumb-saddle-joint and the last finger-joint row. Only very rarely rheumatic nodes occur, which only develop in the absence of therapy after many years of disease progression. These are small rough, rarely however painful hardenings in the finger area. With untreated and advanced rheumatoid arthritis, joint malpositions of the finger joints occur very frequently, so that they are hardly mobile.