The reason for contacting a rheumatologist is various pains and discomfort that occur within the area of individual joints, an altered state of the structure or familiar shape of the joint, the occurrence of a feeling of stiffness in movements and the relevance of a hereditary predisposition to the emergence of a similar type of disease associated with damage to joints and tissues when their accompanying symptoms.
Given that a rheumatologist is a specialist in diseases of a dystrophic and inflammatory nature, due to which damage to the joints and connective tissue occurs, the main indications for accessing it are not only these reasons.
So, for example, a predisposition to the frequent occurrence of tonsillitis or to infectious diseases is an equally important reason for contacting this particular specialist. It is worth paying attention to the appearance of crunch in the joints or to a certain degree of swelling in them, as well as in the spine – all this is also an occasion for a consultation of a rheumatologist.
Rheumatologist: what is this doctor treating
Of course, the main diseases that we initially indicated are only their most common variants, in reality, the profile of the resuscitator is much broader in this regard. The fact is that rheumatic diseases are combined with more than a hundred different varieties of diseases in which concomitant symptoms manifest themselves in the form of damage to joints, muscles, spine and bones. If, in addition to the above, connective tissue has been affected, then the disease is systemic.
The presence of rheumatic diseases is a serious reason for reducing the quality of life of a sick person; moreover, in frequent cases due to mobility limitations, there is a risk of job loss due to the inability to fulfill direct duties in one’s professional activity. In approximately 70% of cases, due to an actual disease, a person becomes disabled.
Often it becomes difficult for patients to get out of bed or out of a chair; serious restrictions also arise in terms of leaving the house. All this, in turn, affects the state of mind, certain adjustments of this kind of test make in family life. In most cases, rheumatic diseases are chronic in accordance with the specifics of their own course, which is combined with their frequent exacerbations.
Diseases treated by a rheumatologist, in accordance with the above areas of his activity, can be divided into diseases of the joints and diseases of the connective tissue (diffuse).
Joint diseases
- rheumatoid arthritis;
- osteoarthritis;
- idiopathic juvenile arthritis;
- Still’s disease in adults;
- reactive arthritis (or Reiter’s syndrome);
- septic (infectious) arthritis;
- Bechterev’s disease (ankylosing spondylitis);
- arthritis developing against the background of inflammatory bowel disease;
- gout, pseudogout.
Connective tissue diseases (diffuse)
- systemic lupus erythematosus;
- systemic sclerosis (scleroderma);
- a mixed form of the disease with damage to the connective tissue, combined with the so-called “cross” syndromes.
Among other types of diseases in which muscles, joints, bones, internal organs and vessels are also subject to damage, and which are also treated by a rheumatologist, the following can be distinguished:
- Behcet’s disease;
- acute form of rheumatic fever;
- recurrent polychondritis;
- fibromyalgia;
- rheumatic polymyalgia;
- osteoporosis, etc.
A separate group consists of vasculopathies and systemic vasculitis and the following disorders:
- Kawasaki disease
- Horton’s arteritis;
- polyarteritis nodosa;
- nonspecific aortoarteritis;
- microscopic vasculitis;
- cryofibrinogenesis of vasculopathy;
- Purple Schönlein-Genoa;
- cryoglobulinemic vasculitis;
- antiphospholipid syndrome;
- hypereosinophilic angiitis, etc.
