WHAT TREATMENTS AGAINST THE PAIN OF OSTEOARTHRITIS?

Pain is the essential symptom of osteoarthritis, the wear due to the joint.This pain, mechanical type, is accompanied by stiffness of the joint that can eventually become debilitating.Its accurate evaluation, including pain scales, is essential to guide treatment. It starts with taking pain killers and anti-inflammatory. The intra-articular injection or surgery are only indicated in cases of failed previous treatments of osteoarthritis. In any case, remember to spare your joints!

• 
  

TheOA is an arthritis related to wear of articular cartilage, favored by agingjoints. About four million French people are affected by this disease, which most often affects the spine, hip, knee and fingers. The pain is in most cases the main symptom and also the first to appear.

What causes the pain of osteoarthritis?

The cartilage covering the bones that make up a joint is subjected to erosion, which in the normal state, are offset by factors of construction. With age, this balance is no longer insured and if erosion becomes excessive, the cartilage deteriorates and wears. Result: when used, the articular surfaces not slide against each other and is a pain, mobilization of thejoint. It is a pain like "mechanical", ie it increases during physical activity and decreases at rest. She is accompanied by a stiffening of thejoints, it becomes more difficult to mobilize.The patient is increasingly hampered in their daily lives. Local inflammation, affecting the synovium, can also cause pain, it is called "flare."

Assess for pain relief best

It is very important for the physician to precisely evaluate the characteristics of the pain, to find the cause. This assessment will also allow to determine the treatment to prescribe and monitor the effects. The clinical course is essential for the mobilization ofjoint damage triggers a pain that can be evaluated. The doctor may also use ladders to better specify the intensity of pain. With "the simple verbal scale, you will be asked to rate pain from 0 to 3: 0 indicates nopain and 3 to a pain intense. "The visual analogue scale" uses a slider that has two faces: the doctor asks for a slider with the intensity of pain felt and he reads the back of the slide the value indicated by the cursor, listed 0 to 100, and the pain is considered moderate if less than 40, 40 to 70 large and very intense over 70. The evaluation of these scales is also reference to the following consultations.

Many treatments can relieve pain associated with osteoarthritis

The fight against pain osteoarthritis is first use of analgesics (eg paracetamol, aspirin, codeine, or derivatives thereof), possibly associated with anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which provided relief in 75% cases. Very recently, a new class of NSAIDs, anti COX-2 ", arrived on the market. They specifically inhibit the enzyme COX-2, responsible for the synthesis of mediators of pain and inflammation. In addition to their effectiveness analgesic and anti-inflammatory, they have the advantage, compared with traditional NSAIDs, are better tolerated on the digestive system. Ifosteoarthritis is very painful and debilitating, NSAIDs can be taken for long period. In this case, the doctor will always seek the lowest effective dose, and regularly evaluate the tolerance of the treatment. In addition, the association of specific drugs ofosteoarthritis, such as chondroitin sulfate, or diacerhein oxacéprol, reduces the minimum necessary medication painkillers and anti-inflammatory.