Most people with joint pain are diagnosed with arthritis, which is a general term for a number of different conditions that involve swollen, painful, and/or stiff joints. The two most common forms of arthritis are rheumatoid arthritis, which affects more than 6.5 million people in the United States alone; and osteoarthritis, which is an age-related degeneration of joints. One in seven Americans is afflicted with osteoarthritis, and some are virtually housebound by joint pain. In the West, anti-inflammatory drugs are commonly prescribed for arthritis. In the East, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, with their thousand-year-old history, are the major health care modalities used to fight joint and musculo-skeletal disorders including arthritis. These ancient therapies are still used because they are empirically effective, and have stood the test of time. Now they are standing to meet the tests of Western medicine.
In traditional Chinese medicine, the condition that is congruent with arthritis is called “Bi syndrome.” Bi syndrome manifests as pain, soreness, or numbness of muscles, tendons and joints, and is the result of the body being “invaded” by the external climatological factors of Wind, Cold, Heat, and/or Dampness. The symptoms manifested by the individual depend on which external pathogenic factor is […]
Full Article At: KnowHow-Now.com Articles
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common inflammatory form of arthritis. It is a systemic, chronic, autoimmune disease for which there is no current cure. However, it is clear that early diagnosis and aggressive treatment can make a tremendous impact on prognosis and prevention of disability. In fact, the aim for every patient should be to get them into remission as soon as possible. Many clinicians have adopted the approach of starting early aggressive therapy in the hopes of inducing remission rapidly. This methodology was validated by a recent study.
In early inflammatory arthritis, higher rates of remission are achieved if treatment is started early with conventional therapies and patients are more closely followed, according to research presented recently at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific meeting in Boston (November 6-12, 2007).
A prospective observational cohort of 103 patients with early inflammatory arthritis were evaluated to determine how many patients reached remission 12 months after the start of DMARD (disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug) therapy. Investigators also compared the different methods of measuring remission currently in use by clinicians.
The average age of the patients was 46 years, and 80% were women. All had symptoms of early arthritis for more than six weeks but […]
Full Article At: KnowHow-Now.com Articles
A recent study has shown that the use of a combination of a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor along with methotrexate therapy in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was associated with a reduction in heart attack risk of 80 percent compared with patients using methotrexate alone, according to research presented recently at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Boston, Mass.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, systemic, autoimmune disease that not only causes pain, stiffness, swelling, and limitation of function in joints, but also damages internal organs as well.
Approximately, 2.1 million Americans are afflicted with RA, most of them women. As mentioned above, while joints are the principal areas affected by RA, inflammation can develop in other organs as well. Heart attacks, resulting from inflammation of the coronary vessels, are more common in RA sufferers.
Researchers recently studied the risk of heart attack in patients using a TNF-inhibitor (a drug that blocks cytokines and can turn off the chronic inflammation that causes destruction in RA), methotrexate (a drug used to treat RA by blocking the metabolism of cells) and other disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), which are a category of drugs used in RA to slow down the disease progression, […]
Full Article At: KnowHow-Now.com Articles
