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 According
to traditional Chinese medicine , rheumatoid arthritis due to affection by wind
or cold, dampness, heat or other pathogenic evils, which enters the human body
and collaterals, giving rise to pain, swelling, heaviness, numbness and even
difficulty in movement. The syndrome was firstly seen in "The Yellow
Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine", and later, has been described in
many kind. of literature. That is why its classification is rather diversified.
Based on its cause, it can be classified as wind arthralgia, cold arthralgia,
damp arthralgia, and heat arthralgia. Based on its symptoms, it is divided into
migratory arthralia, arthralgia aggravated by cold and adhasive arthralgia .
Diseases
included in Western medicine including rheumatic arthritis, rheumatoid
arthritis, osteoarthritis, sciatica and so on.
Rheumatoid
arthritis (RA) is an active, inflammatory, peripheral, systemic,
symmetrical arthritis afflicting three women for every man. Now
let's break down this medical jargon. Active means that RA is
an ongoing process lasting for years. In general parlance, inflammatory
means fiery or provocative, but here it means swelling, redness,
tenderness, and pain in your joints. Peripheral tells us that
RA involves mainly the joints of the arms and legs, in particular the
fingers and wrists. Systemic means that RA, unlike
osteoarthritis, affects the heart, lungs, and eyes of some patients in
addition to the musculoskeletal system. Symmetrical is the key
in distinguishing it from other kinds of arthritis. RA usually
involves the same joints on both sides of the body: the knees, the
wrists, or the joints of the fingers, for example.
RA is one of the most common forms of arthritis. It affects
mainly women in their forties, but it can also occur in children and
in seniors over sixty-five years of age. It is an equal opportunity
condition, affecting rich and poor alike. Arthritis occurs more than
half of the time in the fingers, wrists, shoulders, knees, and ankles.
Besides pain in the joints, it also causes trouble in other parts of
the body, although involvement of the upper spine or lower sacroiliac
joints is unusual.
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