Arthritis Pain

Understanding arthritis pain

More than 40 million Americans are affected by some form of arthritis, and many have chronic arthritis pain that limits daily activity.

Pain is the body's warning system, alerting you that something is wrong. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines it as an unpleasant experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage to a person's body. Arthritis pain can be either acute or chronic. Chronic pain, such as that seen in people with osteoarthritis pain and rheumatoid arthritis pain, ranges from mild to severe and can last weeks, months, and years to a lifetime.

Arthritis pain comes from different sources, including inflammation of the tissue that lines the joints, the tendons, or the ligaments; muscle strain; and fatigue. If you have a combination of these pain sources, your arthritis pain may be more intense. Factors that contribute to the arthritis pain include swelling within the joint, the amount of heat or redness present, or damage that has occurred within the joint.

One way that you can manage your arthritis pain is to help your doctor understand the type and level of arthritis pain you are experiencing. Many people describe their arthritis pain as throbbing, aching, burning, tingling, and pounding. Do any of those words sound right to you? Try to describe your arthritis pain as clearly as possible. Then, rate the pain in terms of intensity. Most physicians use a pain rating scale of 0 to 10 with 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you've ever experienced.

It may help for you to establish an arthritis pain diary. Keep track of when you feel pain, what type of pain, it is, the intensity and what you were doing at the time. For example, your arthritis pain diary might have an entry such as, "knees very stiff and achy when I got out of bed this morning. Didn't start hurting until I moved then along with sharp pain in the joint, I felt a little numbness on the outside of both knee joints and the back of my knees burned. The intensity was about 6."

Share your arthritis pain diary with your doctor. This information will allow him to evaluate your arthritis pain much more fully and offer better options for managing the pain.