Arthritis and Psoriasis - What's the Connection?

What's true is that a between ten and thirty percent of people who have psoriasis also get psoriatic arthritis. It seems odd that a disease that primarily affects the skin would also affect joint tissue. No one knows really why the two conditions are related and why some people get psoriatic arthritis and don't actually get psoriasis.

Psoriatic arthritis is a lot like rheumatoid arthritis in its appearance but is generally less severe than rheumatoid arthritis. For example, in both conditions the fingers are affected, except that in psoriatic arthritis, it is the tips of the fingers that are affected. In rheumatoid arthritis, it is the knuckles that are primarily affected. In both cases, there can be severe destruction of the bony and joint tissue.

Because psoriasis is an autoimmune disease, meaning that antibodies and immune cells attack normal tissue, there may be a carryover between the connective tissue in the skin and the connective tissue in the joints that causes the immune response to affect both body areas. In skin psoriasis, there is a message given to the skin to make skin cells at a remarkably fast rate, causing a buildup of silvery layers of skin on a reddened base of skin. Such a process is probably not happening in the joints and instead the immune response acts on the joint connective tissue, inflaming it and ultimately destroying the tissue the same way the immune system destroys a foreign invader.

Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis can flare up when the sufferer undergoes a great deal of stress, injures the joints or skin, or suffers an illness that makes them temporarily immunosuppressed. Other causes of immunosuppression are things like chemotherapy, AIDS or an inherited lack of immune responses. Alcohol or overexposure to the sun can also trigger reactions.

The combination of a skin biopsy and X-rays can determine whether or not a person has psoriatic arthritis along with their psoriasis. X-rays of people with psoriatic psoriasis are distinctive and one can tell that it's psoriatic arthritis just by the appearance of the X-rays.

There are five basic types of psoriatic arthritis:

繚 Predominately the interphalangeal joints. This involves pain and swelling of the last joint on all fingers and the thumb. The toes are also involved. It looks a lot like osteoarthritis.

繚 Asymmetrical Arthritis. This is when two to three joints are involved and there is no rhyme or reason as to which of the joints are typically involved. The fingers and toes are common.

繚 Symmetrical Polyarthritis. Several joints are involved and they are usually matching from one side of the body to the other. Joint deformity is common.

繚 Spondylitis or psoriatic spondyloarthritis. This involves spinal involvement of the joint and often involves multiple vertebrae.

繚 Arthritis mutilans. This is the most severe form of psoriatic arthritis and, while rare, it carries a big health consequence because many joints are affected and the joints are severely damaged as a result of this type of psoriatic arthritis.

For those who are suffering from psoriasis, there is at least a ten percent chance that you will also get psoriatic arthritis. In addition, you could be among the small number of people that get psoriatic arthritis before actually coming down with psoriasis. The exact reason as to why the two diseases are related is as yet unknown.