Rheumatoid arthritis is something that will often start off slowly and then gather pace
. As such it can begin to creep up on you without you paying too much attention to it. Most people will begin to feel a little basic stiffness which will then grow into a painful and swollen problem for you to deal with. The disease mainly targets the finger joints and the feet to a lesser extent. Here are the most common rheumatoid arthritis symptoms.
First of all you will feel an aching and a throbbing pain. The amount of pain that you feel will very from day to day and also depending on who you are and how bad the problem is. Often this can be worst in the mornings or when you have been sitting down for a long time.
Secondly, you will also feel stiffness. The joints that are affected will often feel stiff and again this is often something that is worse during the morning when you haven't been moving for a long time and then this will get better throughout the day.
The third symptom is a swelling of the joints. This is something that will occur in the wrist joints, the finger joints and the feet joints to a lesser extent. The result of this swelling can mean that the joints look slightly reddish and will often feel warm.
The final symptom that you will find is that you may suffer from the growth of lumps under the skin. This is because the arthritis will often spread to other areas and about one in five people will be affected by this spreading to the skin around the joints. Here they will often see lumps growing aroud the joints and these can be painful. If they really cause a problem for you then they can be removed by surgery.
These are the most common symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.