Arthritis literally means joint inflammation. You also have to understand that arthritis is not a single disease. Arthritis refers to an entire group of diseases.

Most people don't realize that there are over 100 conditions and rheumatic diseases that are all arthritis related. What they all do is cause pain, swelling and stiffness in a variety of manners and all of them affect different parts of the body.

The time that joints are starting to get damaged is when it is said that you have arthritis. Most of us realize that this condition affects the older population. Each of the different forms of arthritis all have there own cause.

The common thread between all arthritis

We have a hundred different forms of arthritis, so what is common with all of them? The answer to this question is without a doubt pain. The arthritis pain will be different among all of the individuals suffering from arthritis, and the location of the pain will also be different.

What are some of the warning signs for arthritis?

Stiffness swelling pain difficulty in moving one or more joints

Are you feeling stiffness and swelling in one or more of your joints and have you been feeling this for a couple weeks or more? If you answered yes to the above then you need to visit your physician and have these warning signs diagnosed and treated.

I am not going to go into all of the different types of arthritis and their symptoms. What I am going to do is list a few for you, and I will do another article that will list many others. So here are a few types of arthritis and the symptoms that are associated with them.

Osteoarthritis - what you will find is that the pain is worse at night or after rest. Osteo arthritis is a degenerative joint disease that results from wear and tear. Some of the symptoms of this are:

decreased function in the affected joint tenderness to the touch pain in the affected area swelling around the joint where pain is being felt

When you are suffering from osteo arthritis, to tell initially may be tough. The onset is subtle and a gradual type thing. This is going to be one joint or several joints that can become affected and those joints may be the following:

spine area your hands hips become sore hard on the knees

Rheumatoid - most often the pain is felt in the morning. When in the elderly and children some of the limbs may refuse to function and the pain may not be as pronounced.

When you are suffering from Rheumatoid arthritis you are suffering from an auto immune disease. What is happening is the body is attacking itself. This can be a chronic and a disabling problem and can cause the following:

stiffness joint pain swelling loss of joint function

Rheumatoid arthritis remains a mystery to doctor's on why it occurs. Some believe that it is genetic. When it is first starting out, it can be tough to tell if a person is suffering from this disease since it happens so slow at first.

There are many different types of arthritis and I am going to list some of them now. There is rheumatoid, osteoarthritis, gout and pseudogout, septic, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and many more.

With the technology today and the advances in medicine, treating arthritis symptoms have become many. Drugs, either over the counter or stronger drugs prescribed by your doctor is one way and then there is also arthroplasty. This is just a couple ways to treat the symptoms.

When joint pain is so severe that there may come a time when prosthetic joint replacement may become necessary. The people who have had this done are very satisfied with the results.

You have to understand that arthritis has been around for a long time. Arthritis dates back to 4500 B.C.. It was then the first traces were noticed in humans.

Ankle osteoarthritis were found in dinosaurs. Even the native Americans of Tennessee, it was noticed that they suffered from a form of arthritis.

There may be a time in the future when a cure for arthritis will be found. But today we can just treat the symptoms of arthritis the best we can. To help the person have a better form of life is what the goal is today, by using drugs and other treatments. Time will tell if something happens out on the horizon, but for now there is no cure for arthritis but there are natural arthritis treatments that are available.

There are other methods to help arthritis sufferers. I only mentioned a couple in this article. I will detail other methods in a future article.