Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder, meaning that it develops when a person's immune system attacks itself, sending white blood cells to healthy tissues -- particularly, in RA, in the lining of the joints. This process leads to inflammation.
Joints
What happens: Rheumatoid arthritis often starts in the small joints of the hands and feet but can progress to other parts of the body. Pain is often worse in the morning and is sometimes symmetrical (you have it in both hands, for example).
Heart
What happens: Up to 10% of RA patients develop serious lung problems. The most common conditions are inflammation in the lungs' lining (pleurisy), which causes pain when breathing; scarring of the tissue in the lungs (pulmonary fibrosis); and an increased chance of emphysema, even in nonsmokers.
Mood
What happens: Vasculitis occurs when blood vessels become inflamed, narrowed and blood flow is reduced. Dr. Matteson says this can block blood flow in areas like the arms, legs, and nerves. Vasculitis can sometimes lead to coronary artery disease, he adds.
Nerves
What happens: Some RA patients get peripheral neuropathy, or nerve damage, that causes a burning and numbness in the feet and hands. Also, when blood vessels become inflamed, the nerves don't have an adequate blood supply, which can result in further nerve damage.
Eyes
What happens: Inflammation can also occur in various parts of the eye—a "devastating complication that can cause blindness," Dr. Matteson says. Problems occur in the eye's iris (uveitis), the white of the eye (scleritis), and the membrane covering the white part (episcleritis). Symptoms include blurred vision, pain, redness, and light sensitivity. Inflammation can also increase the risk of glaucoma and cataracts.
Skin
What happens: If there is inflammation in the blood vessels going to the skin, it can create rashes, skin ulcers, and nodules or skin bumps, especially on the hands, feet, and elbows. Matteson says the bumps may come and go, and physicians don't know what causes them.
Wrists
What happens: Inflammation in the joints pushes on the nerve that runs from the forearm to the wrist and causes carpal tunnel syndrome. People with carpal tunnel usually feel numbness, tingling, weakness, and eventually sharp pain in the arm.
Spleen
What happens: Some people with RA get Felty's syndrome, a condition in which the spleen becomes enlarged and the white blood cell count drops, making them more susceptible to infections. But because RA can be controlled relatively well, Dr. Matteson says this complication is unusual, affecting less than 1% of RA patients.
Most people with active RA experience a reduction in red blood cells called anemia. Anemia may cause symptoms such as fatigue, rapid heart beat, shortness of breath, dizziness, leg cramps, and insomnia. Active inflammation may also lead to high levels of blood platelets, while treatment to suppress the immune system may lead to low levels of blood platelets, a condition called thrombocytopenia.
Kidneys
Renal amyloidosis can occur as a consequence of chronic inflammation.[11] RA may affect the kidney glomerulus directly through a vasculopathy or a mesangial infiltrate but this is less well documented (though this is not surprising, considering immune complex-mediated hypersensitivities are known for pathogenic deposition of immune complexes in organs where blood is filtered at high pressure to form other fluids, such as urine and synovial fluid[12]).
RA affects people differently. Symptoms may wax and wane, but it is a chronic condition. Most RA patients experience periods of intense disease ("flares") interspersed with periods during which the disease subsides ("remissions"). This combination of flares and remissions is highly variable from person to person: Some people have mild, short flares followed by a long remission; others may have more severe or longer flares that never go away. Early diagnosis and treatment before destructive joint damage develops may help put the disease into remission.
Medicine used to treat:
My meds are as follows: Actemra
Tocilizumab[1] (INN, or atlizumab, developed by Hoffmann–La Roche and Chugai and sold under the trade names Actemra andRoActemra) is an immunosuppressive drug, mainly for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, a severe form of RA in children. It is a humanized monoclonal antibody against theinterleukin-6 receptor (IL-6R). Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a cytokine that plays an important role in immune response and is implicated in the pathogenesis of many diseases, such asautoimmune diseases, multiple myeloma andprostate cancer.
Methotrexate (rINN) /mɛθɵˈtrɛkseɪt/, abbreviated MTX and formerly known asamethopterin, is an antimetabolite andantifolate drug. It is used in treatment ofcancer, autoimmune diseases, ectopic pregnancy, and for the induction of medicalabortions.[1] It acts by inhibiting the metabolism of folic acid. Methotrexate began to replace the more toxic antifolateaminopterin starting in the 1950s.
Folic acid (also known as folate, vitamin M,vitamin B9,[3]vitamin Bc[4] (or folacin),pteroyl-L-glutamic acid, and pteroyl-L-glutamate[5]) are forms of the water-solublevitamin B9. Folate is composed of the aromatic pteridine ring linked to para-aminobenzoic acid and one or more glutamate residues. Folic acid is itself not biologically active, but its biological importance is due to tetrahydrofolate and other derivatives after its conversion todihydrofolic acid in the liver.[6]
Vitamin B9 (folic acid and folate) is essentialfor numerous bodily functions. Humans cannot synthesize folate de novo; therefore, folate has to be supplied through the diet to meet their daily requirements. The human body needs folate to synthesize DNA, repair DNA, and methylate DNA as well as to act as a cofactor in certain biological reactions.[7] It is especially important in aiding rapid cell division and growth, such as in infancy and pregnancy. Children and adults both require folic acid to produce healthy red blood cellsand prevent anemia.[8]
Folate and folic acid derive their names from the Latin word folium (which means "leaf"). Leafy vegetables are principal sources of folic acid, although in Western diets fortified cereals and bread may be a larger dietary source.[citation needed]
A lack of dietary folates leads to folate deficiency, which is uncommon in normal Western diets.[citation needed] A complete lack of dietary folate takes months before deficiency develops as normal individuals have about 500–20,000 µg[9] of folate in body stores.[10] This deficiency can result in many health problems, the most notable one beingneural tube defects in developing embryos. Common symptoms of folate deficiency include diarrhea, macrocytic anemia with weakness or shortness of breath, nerve damage with weakness and limb numbness (peripheral neuropathy),[11] pregnancy complications, mental confusion, forgetfulness or other cognitive declines, mental depression, sore or swollen tongue, peptic or mouth ulcers, headaches, heart palpitations, irritability, and behavioral disorders. Low levels of folate can also lead to homocysteine accumulation.[7] DNA synthesis and repair are impaired and this could lead to cancer development.
Prednisone is a synthetic corticosteroid drug that is particularly effective as animmunosuppressant drug. It is used to treat certain inflammatory diseases (such as moderate allergic reactions) and (at higher doses) some types of cancer, but has significant adverse effects. Because it suppresses the immune system, it leaves patients more susceptible to infections.
Now all those things are straight from the Internet!
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