Archive for the 'Muscle & Bone Disorders' Category

Inflammation at any portion of your body joints, especially tendons, leads to tendonitis, which can be identified with mild swelling, tenderness or pain at the affected area of your body.

These tendons become inflamed because of several reasons, which can include your daily physical activities or hobbies like gardening, painting, tennis, skiing, raking, etc.

Anyone over 40 years of age can get tendonitis. As tendons age, they become weak and loses ability to tolerate excessive stress. They also lose their elasticity and become easier to tear.

Any portion of the body, where the tendon normally connects bone to a muscle can become inflamed due to over stress, resulting in tendonitis. Some of the most common areas or parts of the body which can get inflamed due to over use include elbow, base of your thumb, knees, shoulder and Achilles tendon.

Increased levels in regular exercise routines mainly contribute to tendonitis!

Most common cause for tendonitis is mainly due to over use of body joints. Usually many of you, who are in initial stages of regular exercise programs, are more prone to experience tendonitis. Sudden increase or starting with increased levels of regular exercise routine can aggravate the condition of tendonitis.

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Actemra is the first of a new class of drug with a novel mechanism of action that brings new hope to RA patients.

It is a humanized interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor-inhibiting monoclonal antibody which works by suppressing the activity of IL-6, an important trigger of the inflammatory process.

This novel mode of action reduces inflammation of the joints and relieves the systemic effects of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Roche announced that Actemra (tocilizumab) can significantly inhibit structural damage to joints in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a critical measure of effectiveness of an RA treatment.

Actemra also improved the patients’ physical function after one year of therapy, leading them to a better quality of life.

The outcome of this study is good news for RA patients as presently many either fail to achieve an adequate response or cannot tolerate therapies currently available.

New treatment options are needed, particularly those that can target different pathways to bring relief and inhibit joint damage in patients suffering from RA.

Source: Medical News Today

Shin splints are the most common running related injuries, which you can experience while you run behind a soccer ball or jog around your neighborhood park.

These shin splints can also take place during your training for marathon.

Shin splints are most common among runners and athletes, but the risk of developing the shin splints is very less in your regular walks or morning jog and also during your aerobics.

This term shin splint usually refers to pain along your shinbone, large bone which is present in front of your lower leg.

You can experience this pain due to an overload or over use of shinbone and the tissue which connects the bone and the associated muscles of your leg. Most of the cases of shin splints can be easily treated with certain simple self care tips like rest, with ice and also with many other measures.

Self care involved in the treatment of shin splints!

Some of the simple measures for shin splints are given here. It is very important to take an advice from your fitness expert or any experienced orthopedic expert before practicing these measures.

Can you imagine, even your bone present deep inside your skin gets infection, known as Osteomyelitis. Pus producing bone infection can be either chronic or acute.

Even though it remains in one location, it is quite capable to spread through out your bone marrow, a covering membrane of your bones.

An infection can reach your bone by traveling through blood stream or by spreading from nearby tissue. These infections can also start in your bone itself, when your bone is directly exposed to germs causing infection, through any traumatic accident.

Long bones such as leg and also upper arm bones are usually affected with this osteomyelitis. Some of the other bones, which can be infected with this bone infection can include bone of your spine, foot, pelvis and also collar bone.

Identifying osteomyelitus – A tough task!

If you have osteomyelitis, you can feel severe pain at the areas where the bone is infected. You can also experience fever, chills, nausea or you can also have a general feeling of not being well. Skin that covers the infected bone can become red and swollen.

Do you have fibromyalgia? The best thing you can do to get relief from fibromyalgia is exercises.

Fibromyalgia exercises can help you a lot in giving relief from the muscle and joint pains caused due to fibromyalgia [Treating fibromyalgia symptoms].

Fibromyalgia not only results in severe muscle and joint pains, but it is also responsible for poor sleep, stiffness or muscle aches and also causes headache.

Excess stress and lack of good sleep can make the symptoms of the disorder more worse.

Fibromyalgia exercise can be very helpful to get relief from the pain of muscle and joints. Some of the exercises for fibromyalgia include walking, jogging and also bicycling.

Walking:

It can be a better fibromyalgia exercise for you if you do it regularly. Don’t try to walk for more time from day one itself. Start walking slowly for five minutes on the first day and the next day add a minute to this total. Keep adding a minute or two daily, until you walk for 60 minutes in a day.

Approximately 2% of the people suffer from scoliosis in United States.

There are approximately 20% chances of having scoliosis in the running family if anyone in the family has experienced this disease.

So, they need to be examined to know if scoliosis is present. The reason for scoliosis is not known in almost 80% cases.

This condition is commonly seen in middle and late childhood pre-puberty, mostly in girls than boys. Even though it is common in children, scoliosis can also occur in adults representing the development of scoliosis of childhood that was not diagnosed or treated at their childhood.

Different Types Of Scoliosis Based On Age, Cause, And Curve!

Scoliosis Based On Curve –Four types of scoliosis depending on the region of the curve include:

Thoracic scoliosis: In this, majority of the scoliosis is seen towards the right side in mid back.

Lumbar scoliosis: In this, major scoliosis is concentrated in the lumbar region directed to the left side.

Thoracolumbar scoliosis: Majority of the curve is concentrated at the connection of the thoracic and lumbar spine.

Double major:It is also called as thoracolumbar adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. In this, curve is concentrated on both the sides.

About two million Americans are being affected with rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease caused when the immune cells attack the joints and organs.

Even though the rheumatoid arthritis can be seen at any age, it most commonly occurs in young women and adults between the ages of 20 and 45.

People with rheumatoid arthritis tend to die younger mostly from cardiovascular disease. It has been found that there is a link between rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease.

Rheumatoid arthritis seems to raise the risk of having silent heart disease. New research says that there is likely a risk of three times of dying prematurely with heart disease with rheumatoid arthritis.

The reason for this is that the inflammation advances atherosclerosis. The marker of inflammation and elevation of C-reactive protein levels have been shown to predict cardiovascular disease in people.

Nevertheless, other inflammatory diseases like Crohn’s disease will not carry the risk of having premature deaths from heart diseases.

A new study suggests that the risk can be identified and modified with the same criteria that are used to identify the risk of heart disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, family history of cardiovascular disease, and older age.

In general, hernia can occur in your body when any part in the body protrudes through the gap or opening into other part.

Hiatal hernia can be formed at the opening of your diaphragm where the esophagus, commonly known as food pipe, joins your stomach.

Most of the small hiatal hernias do not cause any harm and you can never know that you have a hernia, until your doctor determines it while checking for other health conditions.

But on the other side, if the hiatal hernia is larger, then it can result in chest pain and heartburn by allowing the acids and food back to your esophagus. Some times, these large hernias needs surgical repair.

What can be the source for this kind of protrusion?

The main reason behind hiatal hernia is still unknown. Some of you can develop this protrusion after sustaining an injury in that particular area of your body and others are born with a large hiatus or it can also be developed due to weakness.

Some of the experts suspect that this kind of hernia can be developed due to increased pressure in the abdomen from coughing, pregnancy and delivery or it can be due to substantial weight gain.

Overuse or repetitive stress to your body joints can result in a painful inflammation, bursitis.

Usually your body has more than 150 bursae which lubricates and cushions the pressure points present between your bones, tendons and muscles near your joints.

When ever an inflammation occurs to these bursae, it can end up with a painful movement or pressure for your body joints.

Bursitis can more prominently occur at particular joints in your body like shoulders, elbows or hips. You can also have more chances to develop this inflammation at your knee, heel and also at the base of your big toe.

Inflammation of the bursa can be the main source for bursitis!

In many cases, the cause responsible for bursitis can be unknown. Bursae, these fluid filled sacs often get inflamed due to overuse or it can also occur due to excessive stress or prolonged pressure on your joints. Some of the causes which can be responsible for inflammation of bursae include:

• Trauma: Trauma can cause inflammatory bursitis from repetitive injury, which can result in widening of your blood vessels. This widening can allow the proteins and the extracellular fluids present in your body to flow into bursae and it reacts adversely to these foreign substances by causing pain and swelling at your joint.

Did you observe any swelling or bulge or do you feel tightness in that particular area?

This condition is mainly due to baker’s cyst, which is usually the result of your knee or joint problem like arthritis.

This pain of baker’s cyst can become worse when you completely extend your knee or even when you are physically active.

Baker’s cyst is more common in adults between 55 to 70 years of age and also in children between 4 and 7 years of age.

Almost one in five persons suffering with knee or joint pains is at increased risk of developing baker’s cyst.

Baker’s cyst can become more complicated if the fluid protrudes down your leg between the muscles of calf. Sometimes, these cysts can burst out by leaking the fluid down your inner leg to give the inner ankle an appearance of a painless bruise. This rupture of cyst is usually associated with swelling of the leg and can imitate phlebitis of leg.

What is the role of synovial fluid in developing baker’s cyst?

Baker’s cysts are most common and can be caused by any joint swelling. The cartilages and tendons present in your knee rely on a lubricating fluid called synovial fluid. This fluid plays a major role in the movement of your knees and reduces the friction between the moving parts of your legs.