Symptoms
Symptoms of
osteoarthritis can range from mild to
severe.
They may include:
- Pain. Your joints may
ache, or the pain may feel burning or sharp. For some people, the pain may come
and go. Constant pain or pain while you sleep may be a sign that your arthritis
is getting worse.
- Stiffness. When you have arthritis, getting up in the morning
can be hard. Your joints may feel stiff and creaky for a short time, until you
get moving. You may also get stiff from sitting.
- Muscle weakness.
The muscles around the joint may get weaker. This happens a lot with arthritis
in the knee.
- Swelling. Arthritis can cause
swelling in joints, making them feel tender and sore.
- Deformed joints. Joints can start to look like they are the
wrong shape, especially as arthritis gets worse.
- Reduced range of motion and loss of use of the joint. As your
arthritis gets worse, you may not be able to fully bend, flex, or extend your joints. Or you may not be able to use them at all.
- Cracking and creaking. Your joints may make crunching,
creaking sounds. This creaking may also occur in a normal joint. But in most cases, it doesn't hurt and doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the joint.
Arthritis of the spine can also narrow the openings
that make space for the spinal cord and for the nerves that branch off the
spinal cord (). This is called
. It can lead to pressure on the spinal
cord or spinal nerves. This pressure can cause pain, weakness, or
numbness.
Some medical
conditions can cause symptoms similar to osteoarthritis.
One Man's Story: 
Steve, 55 "I thought the stiffness and pain in my
hip was just from the stress I was putting on my muscles. But when I changed my
exercise routine or stopped working out, the pain was still there ... The
pain would come and go. It wasn't a sharp pain, but a kind of ache that would
keep me awake a lot. I could never stay in one position for very long."—Steve Read more about Steve and how he learned to cope with arthritis. |