What are rheumatic diseases?
Rheumatic diseases refers to various painful medical conditions which affect joints, bones, cartilage, tendons, ligaments and muscles.In many cases they can also affect the internal organs like kidneys , nerves , heart , brain , blood vessels as well as blood itself. Most of these diseases affects more than one organ of the body.

What is the difference between arthritis and rheumatic diseases?
Arthritis is not a disease by itself but it is one of the symptoms of rheumatic disease (for details on what is arthritis refer to my blog on arthritis )

I have heard rheumatic diseases are autoimmune .Can you explain that?
Yes most of the rheumatic diseases are autoimmune in nature. “auto” means self and “immunity “ means the ability to fight against infections. Autoimmune diseases are ones where one’s immune system starts fighting against the body itself instead of fighting external infections. Please note that it is not lack of immunity but overactive immunity that causes these diseases. Hence the treatment is also suppresing the immune system using immunosuppresive medications.

Who is a rheumatologist?
A rheumatologist is one who looks after diagnosis and management of patients with rheumatic diseases.

What is the difference between a rheumatologist and a orthopaedician?
Orthopedicians deal with mainly fractures , tumors and diseases which need surgery of the bones and joints like knee replacement , hip replacement , arthroscopy etc. Whereas a rheumatologist looks after the medical diseases affecting bones and joints like arthritis , osteoporosis etc whuch requires mainly medical management. In addition rheumatologists also looks after other complicated diseases involving joints along with internal organs.

Who can be affected by rheumatic diseases?
Rheumatic diseases affect all ages including children and both genders, although women are more frequently affected than men.

What are the symptoms of rheumatic disease?
Most of the rheumatic diseases have arthritis . Other common symptoms of rheumatic disease are
a>Rash in the face which burns when you go out in the sun
b>Fingers turning blue in the winter
c>Dryness of eyes and mouth
d>Decrease in blood counts
e>Protein loss in urine

These are just some of the symptoms.If you have more than one of these symptoms then your probability of having a rheumatic disease becomes high.

What are the different rheumatic diseases?
Examples are rheumatoid arthritis , ankylosing spondylitis , psoriatic arthritis , systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) , Sjogren’s syndrome , Scleroderma , polymyositis , dermatomyositis , takayasu’s arteritis , different kinds of vasculitis .

How can a rheumatic disease be diagnosed?
A definitive diagnosis of rheumatic diseases can be made by assessing the medical history, by performing a physical examination or ordering specific laboratory tests, and undertaking imaging investigations .

Do these diseases have effective treatment ?
These diseases have effective treatment but as these are chronic diseases like diabetes or hypertension ,the treatment might have to be taken for long time even lifelong . Initially you may have to take many medicines but after few years if you are doing well we can decrease the medicines.

Can these diseases be serious?
Rheumatic diseases can be disabling as well as life threatening. Untreated joint diseases can cause deformity of the joints. Involvement of the vital organs like kidneys , heart , brain can cause risk to your life.