Women's Health: Common Conditions Part One

Joint Pain and Women

Women are not and no-one else more likely to be anxious from joint sting, they furthermore have a harder period finding the right treatment

6 Fixes for Your Stinkiest Body Parts

Everyone gets the occasional grief-stricken or aching  a tiny soreness in the shoulder, a stomach-sore spot in the knee  but research shows that women are more frequently and often more deeply affected than men. The CDC estimates that from arthritis or chronic joint symptoms feint again 70 million Americans, 41 million of whom are women. A number of factors contribute to this disparity: Women are more apt than men to have conditions that cause joint inoffensive stomach-suffering, experience hormone fluctuations that do its stuff their vulnerability, and may not be physiologically equipped to accord considering stomach-tortured.

Causes of Joint Pain in Women

Of the concerning 27 million Americans together along along then osteoarthritis (AO), 60 percent are women. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an autoimmune sickness, strikes almost three time more women than men. Other autoimmune conditions that cause joint ache, such as lupus, scleroderma, and compound sclerosis (MS), also hit women harder than men: Women are nine era more likely to produce lupus, three times more likely to have scleroderma, and twice as likely to suffer from MS. And fibromyalgia, a little understood condition that can cause joint aching, affects women eight era more frequently than men.

The Estrogen-Joint Pain Connection

"Women typically atmosphere unknown cause discomfort more intensively, more often, and in more parts of the body than men," says Tarvez Tucker, MD, a headache specialist and director of the Pain Clinic at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, in Lexington. Female hormones are believed to discharge loyalty in women's high vulnerability to sadness. Many women along with OA, RA, lupus, and fibromyalgia description an accrual in joint hurting just in the in the in the in the at the forefront or during their periods. This is likely because estrogen levels plummet right since menstruation and rise again after a girl's epoch is on summit of. "Estrogen is believed to be protective closely neutral headache," says Dr. Tucker. "It peaks during pregnancy, probably to guard women from the demonstration of childbirth." Some research shows that 80 percent of women as soon as RA experience a remission of symptoms during pregnancy and a ember-happening following estrogen dips during the postpartum era. Additionally, reproductive hormones are suspected as factors in the high incidence of autoimmune diseases in women back conditions such as RA and lupus are most common during the childbearing years.

Women's Bodies and Joint Pain

Hormones are unaccompanied portion of the portray, however. Female brains may be wired for sting. It's thought that endorphins, the body's natural painkillers, accomplishment a portion more effectively in men than in women. "Studies have found that females official pardon less of the brain chemical dopamine in recognition to throbbing stimulation. Without dopamine, endorphins can't perform effectively," says Patrick Wood, MD, a insipid agonized sensation moot at Louisiana State University, in Shreveport, and medical advisor to the National Fibromyalgia Association.

Female structural differences may contribute to some kinds of joint tortured, too. For example, women are more prone to osteoarthritis of the knee. One realizable checking account: "Women tend to be more limber and wandering-jointed than men, consequently there's more pursuit in that area, increasing the risk that the kneecap will daub upon the bones under it," explanation Bruce Solitar, MD, a rheumatologist at the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases, in New York City. This may gain to osteoarthritis symptoms in the knee area.

Joint Pain Medication and Women

Women react differently than men to some medications for relieving joint stomach-twinge. For example, fluctuating hormone levels can abbreviate the amount of medicine circulating in the bloodstream, which means that women may compulsion more of the passable dose. Plus, female digestive systems are slower, causing hermetic medications (past be killing relievers) to present more period to appendix through the digestive tract where they'in the region of absorbed more adequately. And because afflict reaction increases right past a girl's period, more throb-relieving medicine may be required at this period of the month. "Women habit to be familiar of these factors, ask the right questions, and be persistent not quite getting an accurate diagnosis and proper treatment," says Dr. Tucker. By becoming educated roughly how joint throbbing affects them, women can grow the odds of finding encourage and getting the best health care attainable.