Friday, February 6, 2009

Typical Causes of Joint Pain and How They are Solved

By Shannon Bobbitt

Do you have joint pain? Is it increasing? It may be time to visit your physician to see what the cause is. Only when they know the cause can they truly treat the pain. Giving pain medication is just one part of the treatment plan. If you have an infection, arthritis, joint degeneration, or an injury, each condition will include other treatments as well.

If you have joint pain and you also have a high fever and swelling, you should contact your doctor as this could be signs of an infection. In this case you would receive antibiotics and mild pain medications and some possible physical therapy to treat this. Once the infection is gone and there is no permanent damage, you can usually continue your life as normal.

If you have persistent joint pain that lasts over a week you should contact your doctor. If there is swelling or a high fever associated with the pain do not wait more than 24 hours. If it is due to an injury, you should see that doctor right away to make sure that there is no damage that could become permanent without treatment.

Joint pain is often caused by arthritis, which involves inflammation. This is usually treated by giving anti-inflammatory medications like an Ibuprofen type medication. If the joint pain is caused by fibromyalgia, this has no cure, but pain management is often required because the pain varies in intensity and can often be intolerable. There are other symptoms that accompany fibromyalgia, but the pain seems to be one of the worst tolerable symptoms.

The important thing is that if you have joint pain that starts and does not go away within a week or two to contact your doctor. If there is a high fever or swelling accompanied with the pain you should contact your doctor within 48 hours as it could be an infection which may require IV antibiotics or a hospitalization to get the infection under control.

If you have had an injury and you know that is the cause of the joint pain, you should contact the doctor and get in to have x-rays done and other tests to make sure there is no possible permanent damage or that the injury is getting worse. Joint pain can be something simple to treat, or something that requires more advanced treatments, but unless you contact your doctor to find the cause, you may live with pain that you do not have to. - 15437

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