Learn how to recognize the first signs of inflammatory arthritis before it causes permanent joint damage.
Early in the morning, do your knees feel creakier and your fingers stiffer than usual? Usually, it is overlooked as something due to age. But although this is getting older, it may also indicate something more serious, such as inflammatory arthritis.
Read also: Pain in the knees when walking? The Cult Fit founder shares 5 joint-strengthening exercises
HT Lifestyle reached out to Dr Vivek Dahiya, Senior Director, Orthopedics at Medanta, Gurugram, to understand why arthritis cannot be ruled out, and how persistent and worsening joint discomfort can be an early warning sign of inflammatory arthritis – a group of autoimmune conditions that require timely diagnosis and treatment to prevent irreversible damage and maintain quality of life.
What is inflammatory arthritis?
Joint pain can have different causes. Many may think it is caused by age-related osteoarthritis (OA), but it can also be related to inflammatory arthritis (IA).
The orthopedic doctor explained, revealing the differences. “Osteoarthritis is usually mechanical — the cartilage lining your joints wears down over time, causing bone to rub against bone. Pain often worsens with activity and improves with rest.”
But for inflammatory arthritis, things are a little different. “However, inflammatory arthritis is an autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its healthy tissues, especially the joints. This systemic inflammation can affect other organs as well and behave differently,” he explained.
So, while osteoarthritis is caused by wear and tear, with pain worsening with activity and relieving with rest, inflammatory arthritis is an autoimmune condition, causing persistent joint pain, swelling and systemic effects.
Early signs of inflammatory arthritis
Dr. Dahiya revealed the early signs of inflammatory arthritis, as joint pain is more than just aging:
1. Prolonged morning stiffness:
- One of the most classic signs.
- Stiffness can last for 30 minutes, an hour, or even longer, and you often feel like your joints are “getting cold” after periods of inactivity.
2. Pain that improves with activity and worsens with rest:
- The pain can be at its worst after prolonged rest, such as waking up in the morning or after sitting for a long time.
- Gentle movement can help relieve discomfort.
3. Swelling, pain and warmth of joints:
- It presents with marked inflammation.
- Affected joints may feel swollen, warm to the touch, and excruciatingly painful, even with light pressure.
- Swelling is usually the result of fluid buildup or thickening of the joint lining.
4. Symmetrical sharing:
- Although this is not always the case, certain types of inflammatory arthritis, especially rheumatoid arthritis, often affect the same joints on both sides of the body (for example, both wrists and knees).
5. Fatigue
- Inflammatory arthritis is a systemic disease, meaning it affects the entire body.
- Many individuals experience severe unrelieved fatigue, a general feeling of malaise, or even a low-grade fever, long before their joint pain becomes more severe.
6. Pain in multiple joints (polyarthralgia)
- It involves several joints at once, rather than one isolated joint.
- Small joints in the hands and feet are often affected first, although larger joints, the spine, and even the jaw can also become inflamed.
7. Changes in the skin or nails
- Psoriatic arthritis, a type of inflammatory arthritis, is often accompanied by psoriasis (red, scaly patches on the skin) or characteristic changes in the nails, such as pitting or separation from the nail bed.
8. Eye inflammation
- Conditions such as ankylosing spondylitis or psoriatic arthritis can cause inflammation of the eyes (uveitis or iritis).
- This leads to redness, pain and sensitivity to light.
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician with any questions about a medical condition.
Adrija Dey’s penchant for observation feeds her storytelling instinct. As a lifestyle journalist, she creates compelling, relatable narratives across diverse touchpoints of the human experience, including wellness, mental health, relationships, interior design, home decor, food, travel, and fashion that gently nudge readers toward living a little better. For her, stories exist in flesh and bone, carried by human vessels and shaped by everyday endeavours. It’s the little stories we live and share that make us human. After all, human beings and their traditions are the most natural and raw repositories of stories, and revealing them, for her, is like peeling an orange under the winter afternoon sun. Always up for a chat, she believes the best stories come from unfiltered chatter, where “too much information” is kind of the goal. An alumnus of Indraprastha Women’s College, Delhi University, and an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, Adrija spends her spare hours sipping on herbal tea and a sultry thriller, scribbling inner monologues that she loosely calls poetic pieces, often in the presence of her succulents. On lazier days, she can be found binge-watching, for the nth time, one of her comfort shows in the holy trinity: The Office (US), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or Modern Family. However, dancing alone to peppy playlists is a daily ritual she swears by religiously.Read more
Get every major success and every wicket with Crick-it, a one-stop destination for live scores, match stats, tests, polls and much more. Find out now!
Get your daily dose of fashion, Taylor Swift, health, festivals, travel, relationships, recipes and all other latest lifestyle news on Hindustan Times website and apps.
