About 30% of the world's population, according to statistics, suffer from joint pain. Most often, the pain is caused by arthrosis or arthritis. What is the difference between these conditions and is it as significant as we used to think?

To understand the difference between arthrosis and arthritis, you need to have at least a basic understanding of the joint structure. Any joint in the human body is a mobile connection that allows the articulated bones to move relative to each other. Where the bone surfaces touch, they are covered with cartilage tissue so that sliding is easy and painless. From the inside, the joint is lined with a synovial membrane, which secretes fluid, or lubricant, which also facilitates the movement of the articular surfaces.

What happens with arthritis?

Arthritis is an inflammatory disease of the joints. Inflammation is most often provoked by infections (reactive arthritis), systemic connective tissue pathologies (rheumatoid arthritis), metabolic disorders (gouty arthritis). Regardless of the root cause, the key link in joint damage in arthritis is associated with inflammation.

In arthritis, inflammation mainly affects the synovial membrane of the joint, since it contains many blood vessels, which are important accomplices in the inflammatory reaction. Synovial effusion, which is formed during inflammation, i.e., the fluid produced by the synovial membrane, causes the classic symptoms of arthritis: pain, swelling, and impaired joint function.

What happens to the joint with osteoarthritis?

Arthrosis is a degenerative disease associated with the gradual and slow destruction of cartilage. As in the case of arthritis, in osteoarthritis there is also inflammation, only caused by elements of the cartilage plate that are destroyed. Most often, the destruction of cartilage tissue is caused by injuries, frequent inflammations - arthritis, metabolic disorders and, undoubtedly, degenerative age-related changes. As a rule, at the beginning of the development of deforming arthrosis, the amount of intra-articular fluid decreases, then the cartilage loses its elasticity, becomes cracked, and later, if no measures are taken, it is almost completely destroyed.

Symptoms of arthrosis and arthritis

Many of the symptoms that accompany inflammatory and degenerative joint disease are similar. Inflammation of the joint is arthritis that often occurs against the background of existing degenerative arthritis, so the symptoms overlap, further confusing the situation. However, there are differences that seem to be similar symptoms.

• Pain
  Joint pain is present in both arthrosis and arthritis. However, in osteoarthritis, pain in the early stages of the disease occurs only during movement, after excessive physical exertion and increases gradually over many years. Arthritic pain, as a rule, begins acutely, is accompanied by fever, swelling and redness of the joint.
• Swelling and redness of the joint
  The inflammatory reaction that occurs in arthritis manifests itself with characteristic symptoms: the skin over the joints turns red, and the joints themselves swell due to intra-articular effusion, and become noticeably swollen. With osteoarthritis, the contours of the joint also change, but this process is stretched over years and is not accompanied by redness of the skin.
• Stiffness in the morning
  Morning stiffness is a typical symptom of arthritis. The feeling of stiffness in joints affected by arthritis requires their “working out” after waking up. Most often, the severity of morning stiffness can be used to determine the level of activity of the inflammatory process. Mobility in the joint is also impaired in arthrosis, but with this disease, stiffness occurs less often in the morning hours, and the movement disorders are of a gross nature, up to complete immobility of the joint in the later stages of the disease.

Despite all the above differences, the concepts of arthrosis and arthritis are in many ways similar. Often, the term osteoarthritis is replaced by the doctor with the phrase deforming arthrosis, with the diagnoses of arthrosis or osteoarthritis, since all these terminological definitions are considered by the X International Classification of Diseases as synonyms. The fact is that the basis of degenerative and dystrophic changes in the joint in osteoarthritis is the primary damage to the cartilage with the subsequent inflammatory reaction, therefore both definitions are often used - arthrosis-arthritis, emphasizing that in addition to the destruction of cartilage tissue, there is also its inflammation.

How to help people with joint pain?

For several decades, drugs of the same group have been used to treat both arthrosis and arthritis - non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). They were especially effective in relieving pain in arthritis, because they blocked one of the links of the inflammatory reaction, and in arthrosis they only slightly alleviated the condition. Another side effect of using NSAIDs is the side effect on the gastrointestinal tract, cardiovascular system, liver, kidneys, so currently taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is recommended for increased joint pain in the minimum effective dose and for a short course.

With the advent of injectable chondroprotectors, approaches to the treatment of osteoarthritis and osteoarthritis have changed. New generation chondroprotectors based on bioactive concentrate from small sea fish not only help restore the structure of cartilage, i.e. cope with the pain syndrome in arthrosis, but also eliminate the manifestations of arthritis, as they have pronounced anti-inflammatory properties.

Injectable chondroprotectors based on bioactive concentrate contain a complex of biologically active substances (chondroitin sulfate, amino acids, trace elements), thanks to which they prevent further destruction of cartilage tissue, and also stimulate restoration, that is, regeneration of cartilage. The active components of the drug quickly reach the lesion site, and have an analgesic, anti-inflammatory and regenerative effect. Those chondroprotectors that are injected directly into the cavity of the joint affected by arthrosis have an especially fast effect. Over the years of use, the technique of intra-articular injections has been brought to perfection. That is why more and more traumatologists in the fight against arthrosis prefer injectable chondroprotectors.

In the case of arthritis affecting the joints, the administration of chondroprotectors is recommended in the inter-attack period, after the inflammatory process subsides.

Currently, injectable chondroprotectors with bioactive concentrate are the standard for treating joint diseases.

Conducting courses of intramuscular or intraarticular injections of such chondroprotectors 1-2 times a year, in consultation with a doctor, can:

• Accelerate the process of cartilage renewal;
• Activate the production of structural components of cartilage;
• Protect cartilage from excessive stress and other damaging factors;
• Relieve inflammation in the joint.

Regardless of the cause of joint damage (inflammation, degenerative process, or a combination thereof), it is possible to prevent further destruction of cartilage tissue and reduce the intensity of pain syndrome with the help of modern medicines, among which injectable chondroprotectors based on bioactive concentrates occupy a key position.