Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) has always been a confusing
disease to me. When you ask about it, people start talking about autoimmunity,
inflammation, cytokines, immunoglobulin’s, and synovial joints. These are all
complicated processes of our bodies, so I just accepted it as something I
wouldn’t understand. Until NOW! (I hope that sounded exciting!)
I am going to learn what I can about how to nurse patients
and populations with Rheumatoid arthritis, and am going to teach as much as I
can to you!
Ok, so you don’t understand rheumatoid arthritis? Let’s
start with this short video from the Mayo Clinic (It makes me feel smart to use
the Mayo Clinic, also you can use this website to diagnose any symptom you have
as cancer!)
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory
autoimmune disease that attacks the lining of synovial joints, but can affect
almost every system in the body. We will get into the details later. Diagnosis
is done by history and physical, as well as lab tests (such as rheumatoid
factor, C-reactive protein, and other inflammatory indicators). X-rays are not
diagnostic in RA, but they can show some damage later in the disease. There are
many medications that can decrease pain and disability that RA can cause.
So let’s dive into a few of the ideas they talk about here.
Autoimmunity:
When your body attacks itself. Think about the American military, and imagine
that the strongest branch of the army (and I don’t know a lot about the
military so I don’t know what branch that is) decides they don’t want to defend
America’s Democratic freedom, but rather want to defend mosquitos. Yes,
mosquitos, the worst little bug on earth (a personal opinion). They begin to
battle against the remaining military branches for a cause that is clearly
questionable.
Inflammation:
This is the process by which the body’s white blood cells and the substances
they produce protect us from infection. In the case of RA, it is protection the
body from itself. The substances produced by white blood cells also attacks
itself. So this is when they military branch gone rogue buys weapons and
recruits other members.
Chronic: chronic
diseases are ones that persist for long periods of time, and the damage the
disease causes also progresses over time.
Synovial joints:
joints that have synovial fluid, such as the knee, fingers, elbow, wrist,
shoulder, and many more. Those most effected by RA are the small joints in the
hands and feet, though other larger joints can be involved.
This is a fairly long but entertaining and good review of
the immune system:
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