The most important finding of rheumatic diseases is the complaint of pain. Pain can be in areas such as joints, muscles, spine. Sometimes symptoms occur in more than one region, while a single region is affected. Some features of rheumatic pain are:
The pain occurs during rest and is relieved by movement. It wakes up from sleep at night and causes the need to move
It is intense when you get up in the morning and tends to decrease during the day. Stiffness or Stiffness in the Joint In this respect, when the patient gets up in the morning, he has difficulty in moving his joints, he has difficulty in bending and getting up, and this stiffness is partially relieved with movement. This situation, also known as morning stiffness, lasts for half an hour or more in inflammatory rheumatism and may last up to 3-4 hours in some patients.
Joint Swelling
They are swellings in the joint areas and accompanying pain. These swellings are persistent and usually persist for six weeks or more. Small joints, such as the joints of the hands and feet, as well as large joints such as the knee and ankle can be affected.
Spine Pain
The presence of spinal pain is also a common finding during the course of rheumatic disease. Inflammatory spine diseases should be considered in spinal pain accompanied by spinal stiffness that decreases with movement, increases with rest or rest, and lasts for at least half an hour.
Enthesitis
Findings such as pain or swelling in the areas where the muscle and tendon, called enthesitis, attach to the bone, are also warning signs for rheumatic diseases. The best example of enthesitis is pain in the Achilles tendon (heel) and soles of the feet. The patient has difficulty in standing on his feet, especially when he is still (the most obvious is when he gets up in the morning), and relief is observed over time.
Other Findings
Various organ systems may also be affected in the course of rheumatic diseases. The eye is an important target organ in this respect. In the presence of dry eye, eye uveitis and scleritis, a differential diagnosis may be needed by the rheumatology physician. The frequency of inflammatory rheumatism has increased, and rheumatic diseases should be considered in unexplained spine and joint pains in these patients.
Familial Mediterranean fever should be investigated in patients with Behçet's disease, unexplained fever, recurrent abdominal or chest pain, or pericardial inflammation in patients with wounds in the mouth and genital area and these findings recur.
Rayno's disease in people with sequential signs such as whitening, bruising and redness on their hands triggered by cold, antiphospholipid syndrome in pregnant women with unexplained and recurrent miscarriages and recurrent coagulation disorders, sun-induced rash on the skin, butterfly in people with painful joint swelling disease (lupus) may be considered.
As a result, the symptoms of rheumatic disease are very diverse and may affect different organs and tissues. For this reason, rheumatology physician examination and differential diagnosis are required in unexplained joint, spine, hip pain and organ system involvement.
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