The rheumatology department offers its patients diagnosis, treatment and when appropriate long-term management of:
Inflammatory arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Is a condition that causes pain and swelling in the joints. Hands, feet and wrists are commonly affected, but it can also damage other parts of the body. Rheumatoid arthritis can make your joints feel stiff and can leave you feeling generally unwell and tired.
Psoriatic arthritis
Causes painful inflammation in and around your joints. It usually affects people who already have psoriasis, a skin condition that causes a red, scaly rash, especially on your elbows, knees, back, buttocks and scalp. However, some people develop the arthritic symptoms before the psoriasis, while others will never develop the skin condition.
Ankylosing spondylitis
Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a type of chronic (long-term) arthritis that affects parts of the spine, including the:
- bones
- muscles
- ligaments
The symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis can vary, but most people experience back pain and stiffness. The spinal joints and ligaments and the sacroiliac joints (the joints at the base of the spine) become inflamed. Inflammation in the spine can cause pain and stiffness in the neck and back. Sacroiliitis (inflammation of the sacroiliac joints) causes pain in the lower back and buttocks.
Osteoarthritis
Is the most common form of joint disease. It causes pain and stiffness in your joints. It’s sometimes called osteoarthrosis, arthrosis or degenerative joint disease. It usually develops in people over 50 years of age and is more common in women than in men. It is commonly thought that osteoarthritis is an inevitable part of getting older, but this is not quite true.
Three key characteristics of osteoarthritis are:
- mild inflammation of the tissues in and around the joints
- damage to cartilage, the strong, smooth surface that lines the bones and allows joints to move easily and without friction
- bony growths that develop around the edge of the joints
Connective tissue disease
Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE)
Often known just as lupus, is an autoimmune disease where your immune system produces antibodies that attack your body’s own tissues, causing inflammation. Lupus can affect many different parts of your body. If your heart, brain or kidneys are affected, it can be much more serious, but most people will only have a few symptoms. Many people will find that the symptoms come and go.
Scleroderma
Is a long-term condition that causes your skin to thicken and harden, but it can also affect your internal organs. It’s an autoimmune disease, which means your immune system attacks your body’s own tissues. It’s one of a number of conditions called connective tissue diseases.
Dermatomyositis & Polymyositis
Myositis means inflammation of the muscles (myo = muscle, itis = inflammation). It causes pain and weakness. Polymyositis affects many areas (poly = many), mainly the larger muscles like those around your shoulders, hips and thighs. When polymyositis develops alongside a skin rash, the condition is called dermatomyositis (derm = skin).
Sjogren’s syndrome
Sjögren’s (pronounced Shurgren’s) syndrome is a condition that mainly causes a dry mouth and eyes, though it can also cause a range of other symptoms including joint pain and fatigue.
There are 2 types of Sjögren’s syndrome:
- primary – when it occurs on its own
- secondary – when it also occur in association with another rheumatic disease such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus or scleroderma.
Vasculitis
Vasculitis means inflammation of the blood vessels. It can affect any of the body’s blood vessels, causing a variety of symptoms and potential complications. Inflammation causes swelling of the blood vessel walls, reducing or even blocking the flow of blood to tissues and organs. The main symptom of vasculitis is inflammation, and this can be painful. With many forms of the condition the inflammation is internal and you can’t see it. Because vasculitis takes different forms, the symptoms vary from person to person. Many people with vasculitis feel unwell with fever, sweats, fatigue and weight loss.
Polymyalgia rheumatica
Polymyalgia rheumatica (usually shortened to PMR) is an inflammatory condition that causes many (poly) painful muscles (myalgia), mainly in your shoulder and thigh. If you have PMR you’ll have severe and painful stiffness in the morning, especially in your shoulders and thighs. PMR often strikes suddenly, appearing over a week or 2 and sometimes just after a flu-like illness.
Giant cell arteritis
Giant cell arteritis causes inflammation of the lining of the body’s medium and large arteries (vasculitis). The scalp’s arteries (like temporal arteries) can be particularly affected. Symptoms of giant cell arteritis include:
- severe headache
- jaw muscle pain while chewing
- double vision
- scalp-tenderness
- vision loss
It can lead to blindness; hence, it is very important that once suspected it is treated as soon as possible to reduce the risk of blindness. However, in practical terms, this can be difficult because the initial symptoms of giant cell arteritis can often be vague and non-specific.
Wegeners granulomatosis
Wegener’s granulomatosis is a kind of vasculitis which can affect various parts of body. It occurs as a result of inflammation of small vessels and may affect any part of body, more commonly upper and lower respiratory tract and the kidneys.
Churg-strauss
Churg-Strauss Syndrome is a rare kind of vasculitis affecting arteries supplying heart, lung, brain, kidney and gut. It is commonly associated with asthma.
Metabolic bone disorders
Osteoporosis
The word osteoporosis literally means porous (spongy) bone. It causes your bones to become fragile, so they break more easily. These fractures most commonly occur in the spine, wrist and hips but can affect other bones such as the arm or pelvis.
Paget’s disease
Paget’s disease of bone affects the way that your bone develops and renews itself, causing it to become weaker than normal. In Paget’s disease, the process of renewal and repair is disrupted where bone cells become larger, more active and increase in number causing chaotic bone repair and thus the new bone formed is weaker than usual as its abnormal in shape and structure. Most commonly affected bones are thigh, shin, pelvis, spine and skull.
Gout and pseudogout
Gout is the most common type of inflammatory arthritis, and it’s often said to be the most painful. Attacks of gout usually come on very quickly, often during the night. The symptoms of gout are caused by certain chemical processes that take place within your body. In Gout a substance called urate and in pseudo-gout a substance called calcium-pyrophosphate dihydrate, builds up and forms crystals in your joints, which can lead to painful inflammation. Typical symptoms may include intensely painful, red, hot and swollen joints with the skin over the joint appearing shiny and peeling.
Musculoskeletal disorders
Tennis elbow and golfers elbow
Tennis elbow is a condition that results in pain around the outside of the elbow. And similarly golfers elbow is pain around the inner aspect of the elbow. These often occur after strenuous overuse of the muscles and tendons of the forearm, near the elbow joint. As its name suggests, tennis elbow is sometimes caused by playing tennis and golfers elbow is sometimes caused by playing golf; however, it is usually caused by a number of other physical activities and sometimes in relation to a person having arthritis with inflammation in joints.
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a relatively common condition that causes pain, numbness and a burning or tingling sensation in the hand and fingers. The carpal tunnel is a small tunnel that runs from the bottom of the wrist to the lower palm. Several tendons that help to move the fingers pass through this carpal tunnel and so does the median nerve, which controls sensation and movement of your hand. In cases of CTS, the space inside the tunnel is made smaller by the increased tissue pressure and a build-up of fluid in the tissue (oedema). This places pressure on the median nerve. The pressure is increased further when the wrist and fingers are bent (flexion). Compression of the median nerve causes the symptoms of pain and numbness.
Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia, also called fibromyalgia syndrome, is a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body. The name fibromyalgia comes from three Latin word where ‘fibro’ meaning fibrous tissues, such as tendons (tissue that connects muscles to bones) and ligaments (tissue that connects bones to bones); ‘my’ meaning muscles and ‘algia’ meaning pain. However, the pain of fibromyalgia does not just affect the muscles, ligaments and tendons, but is felt all over the body. It results in widespread pain and extreme tiredness which is sometimes associated with difficulty sleeping, headaches, irritable bowel syndrome and muscle stiffness.
