Sunday, October 13, 2013

What is the Difference Between Gout and Arthritis?


Arthritis is a more general term used to describe a disease where inflammation occurs in one or more joints, which results in pain, swelling, and limited movement. There are many factors that lead to the inflammation which resulted in over 100 different types of arthritis.

One may have joint inflammation for variety of reasons. For older patients, arthritis (also known as rheumatoid arthritis) happened because of general "wear and tear" throughout the years resulted from various physical activities that apply pressure to the joints.

Infectious arthritis or septic arthritis is a fluid and tissue joint infection caused by bacteria, virus or fungus. These infecting agents spread into the joints via bloodstream of adjacent infected tissue. It can also be a direct result of contamination during surgery, injection or injury.

And the most 'popular' type or arthritis in the recent years is gout. Gout is an autoimmune disease where the body attacks itself because the immune system detected a foreign part in the body. This is same as the self-defense mechanism that is triggered when one get stung by a bee or bitten by an ant: inflammation, burning sensation, and pain. In the case of gout, the pain is so intense that some claim that it is the most painful type of arthritis!

What is the foreign part that triggers gout? It is some fine tiny crystal which is known as sodium urate that formed or crystallized inside the synovial fluid of joints. Naturally, these crystals are not supposed to float around in the joint fluid, so our 'immune police' will classify them as foreign invaders and call for a series of immune reaction which resulted in the symptoms that is known as gout.

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