Causes, symptoms and treatment of rheumatism in children and adults

Causes, symptoms and treatment of rheumatism

Rheumatism is a systemic disease that is most often localized in the pericardium. Rheumatism of the heart in adults is diagnosed extremely rarely. Most often, such a diagnosis is given to teenagers at the age of 15. But pathology can develop even in a fully formed organism - articular rheumatism is quite common.

Causes and symptoms of development

Rheumatism is a disease that develops after streptococcus enters the human body. This does not happen to everyone. Everything depends on the state of the immune system of a particular patient and the fulfillment of the instructions for the treatment of one or another infection. The causes of joint rheumatism can lie in frequent injuries, excessive loads on the musculoskeletal system, excess weight - the products of streptococcus activity, getting to weakened joints, immediately begin to actively act.

Detecting the development of this disease at an early stage is extremely difficult. The fact is that the symptoms of rheumatism of the joints can be identical to the symptoms of a cold or flu:

• periodic rise in body temperature;
• joints swell a little and may become painful when palpated;
• there is constant fatigue and drowsiness.

If the pathology appears after a common cold, then such symptoms can be taken as a return of the disease. And only after a couple of weeks, specific signs of rheumatism will begin to appear in children and adults: the swelling of small joints spreads, there is an inexplicable pain in the sternum from time to time. If the patient consults a doctor at this stage, the specialist may note the pericardial friction noise when listening to the heartbeat - this means that the disease is localized in the pericardium.

The diagnosis of rheumatism can be based on the presence of rarer symptoms:

• frequent nosebleeds;
• small pink rashes appear on the skin;
• pains are noted in the area of ​​the anatomical location of the liver in the right hypochondrium.

These symptoms occur in only 10% of all patient visits and mean that the patient should be hospitalized immediately for serious and long-term treatment.

General principles of treatment of rheumatism

Specific tests for rheumatism will help clarify the diagnosis. They will not only confirm the assumptions of specialists, but also indicate the true degree of development of the pathology. Medicines are prescribed individually, but there is also a general scheme of therapy:

1. A penicillin antibiotic. Most often, Bicilin is chosen, which is injected into the body for two weeks. The symptoms of the disease disappear after 5-6 injections, but the therapy cannot be stopped, as there is a high risk of symptoms returning. Even after complete recovery, the patient is prescribed this drug once a month for 3 years - this is how rheumatism is prevented.
2. Aspirin. The considered disease is always accompanied by severe pain, and this drug is able to quickly eliminate it and reduce the intensity of joint swelling. In the first 10-14 days of treatment of rheumatism, Aspirin is prescribed in the maximum permissible daily dose, and then it is taken for another 30 days, but already at 2 g per day.

Aspirin has quite a lot of contraindications: pregnancy, various pathologies of the stomach and intestines, the period of breastfeeding a child, increased fragility of blood vessels, hemophilia, unstable blood pressure.

In isolated cases, the treatment of rheumatism involves the appointment of prednisone - this is a hormonal drug that is introduced into the body in the maximum permissible amount. It is advisable to use this remedy only in case of a severe course of the disease, when it is necessary to urgently relieve the symptoms and stop the progression of the pathological process.

In order to obtain positive results, it is important to carry out complex therapy, which involves following some general, non-medicinal recommendations:

• in the first 10-14 days of hospitalization, the patient is prescribed strict bed rest;
• a dietary menu must be prepared excluding spices, alcoholic beverages, coffee, chocolate, salt and sugar;
• after leaving the acute phase of the disease, balneological treatment will be useful - patients are sent to specialized sanatoriums.

Rheumatism is considered a serious and dangerous disease, which in 87% of cases leads to disability of the patient. Knowledge about how to treat rheumatism of the legs and hands will help in recovery, and you can get them on our website https://dobrobut.com/ .