Rheumatic Diseases

Many people, when they deal with joints pain, they believe that they suffer from rheumatism. Rheumatic diseases present chronic pain and swelling in the joints and tendons, just like the simple degenerative arthritis, or simple tendonitis that we, the orthopedics, often deal with. The degenerative arthritis, or osteoarthritis, or salts, is due to the deterioration of the joints with the age and the use. These cases are treated by the orthopedics. Rheumatic diseases, which are the object of rheumatologists, present deterioration of multiple joints and become the result of a widespread disease. Many times there is a hereditary predisposition.
In rheumatic diseases, the role of the Orthopedic is limited in restoring the functioning of the joints, mainly with surgery. Rheumatic diseases, begin to exist at younger ages in comparison to the degenerative arthritis which does not, the clinical picture that present is characteristic, and in most cases, they have pathological blood tests. In cases where the blood test is negative, we need substantial clinical experience, in order to exclude multiple pathologies and to classify the sufferer as a person with rheumatic disease of non-specified type, e.g. a person may have pain in the arms due to pressure of the median nerve even with negative electromyogram and venous insufficiency in the lower limbs due to increased weight.
This person will visit the doctor due to pain in all joints, but without suffering from rheumatic disease. The main rheumatic diseases are: rheumatoid arthritis, Ankylosing spondylitis, Reiter syndrome, juvenile chronic polyarthritis, Lupus Erythematosus, gouty arthritis, and Psoriatic Arthritis. The rheumatologic diseases are relatively rare in Greece.