St. Theresa's Hospital

Rheumatoid Arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disorder that can affect more than just your joints. The disease commonly affects the hands, knees or ankles, and usually the same joint on both sides of the body, such as both hands or both knees. But sometimes RA causes problems in other parts of the body as well, such as the eyes, heart and circulatory system and/or the lungs.

An autoimmune disorder, rheumatoid arthritis occurs when your immune system mistakenly attacks your own body’s tissues. Early rheumatoid arthritis tends to affect your smaller joints first — particularly the joints that attach your fingers to your hands and your toes to your feet.

Unlike the wear-and-tear damage of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis affects the lining of your joints, causing a painful swelling that can eventually result in bone erosion and joint deformity.

Rheumatoid Arthritis affects many aspects of daily living including work, leisure and social activities. Fortunately, there are multiple low-cost strategies in the community that are proven to increase quality of life.


Symptoms & Causes of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Symptoms In the early stages, people with RA may not see redness or swelling in the joints, but they may experience tenderness and pain. These symptoms are clues to RA:

Joint pain, tenderness, swelling or stiffness that lasts for six weeks or longer.
Morning stiffness that lasts for 30 minutes or longer.
More than one joint is affected.
Small joints (wrists, certain joints in the hands and feet) are typically affected first.
The same joints on both sides of the body are affected.
Many people with RA get very tired (fatigue) and some may have a low-grade fever. RA symptoms may come and go. Having a lot of inflammation and other symptoms is called a flare. A flare can last for days or months.