Did you know? Painful joints, dry eyes, mouth ulcers – maybe it’s the same disease. This is “rheumatism”. We often say “rheumatism”, but do you know about rheumatism? Is rheumatism caused by cold and wind? Is joint pain always rheumatism? How can rheumatism have dry eyes and mouth ulcers? Which symptoms should I see a rheumatologist for? The following is a detailed explanation of rheumatic immune diseases. Immunity is the “culprit” of rheumatism. Rheumatic immune diseases include diffuse connective tissue diseases and diseases of joints and soft tissues around joints, including muscles, tendons, ligaments, bursae, etc. caused by various reasons. The detailed classification of rheumatic diseases covers about 200 kinds of diseases, and the clinical manifestations are diverse. The root cause of the disease is a disorder of the autoimmune system. We give you a simple inventory, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, ankylosing spondylitis, primary dry syndrome, scleroderma, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, osteoarthritis, gout, psoriatic arthritis, vasculitis, rheumatic fever, all of them members. Men and women “rheumatism” are different because of the variety of rheumatic immune diseases, according to the patient’s age, gender, easy to produce different diseases and symptoms. What symptoms should I see a rheumatologist for? Rheumatic diseases are a group of diseases with a wide spectrum of diseases and a large heterogeneity of clinical manifestations. Because of the atypical symptoms, non-rheumatologists and patients are not sufficiently aware of them, and it is very common to miss or misdiagnose them. For example, a young male patient diagnosed with lumbar disc herniation due to low back pain is actually ankylosing spondylitis; dry mouth, recurrent parotid or mandibular gland enlargement is even considered as tumor for surgical removal without knowing it is dryness syndrome; recurrent uveitis attacks almost blindness is found to be leukoaraiosis. What exactly are the symptoms worth noting? 1, chronic fever; 2, rash, hair loss, photosensitivity; 3, joint pain; 4, recurrent neck pain, lumbosacral pain; 5, dry mouth, recurrent parotid or mandibular gland enlargement; 6, recurrent oral ulcers, vulvar ulcers, nodular erythema, uveitis; 7, Raynaud’s sign: both hands fingers (or toes) end white when cold or agitation, purple and red, or skin ulceration; 8, numbness of hands and feet, vision and hearing loss. Rheumatic immune misconceptions 1, joint pain is rheumatic? Wrong. Joint pain is the most common reason for rheumatology visits, but other causes may also cause joint pain, and autoantibody testing and imaging tests are required to make a diagnosis and treatment. 2.Joint pain + high anti-O = rheumatoid arthritis? Wrong. The absence of joint swelling and elevated inflammatory indexes can only indicate that there has been an upper respiratory tract infection caused by streptococcus within six months, and the cause of joint pain should be specifically analyzed. 3. Is rheumatoid arthritis similar to rheumatoid arthritis? Wrong. The two diseases are different from each other in terms of etiology, clinical manifestations to treatment. Rheumatoid arthritis is closely related to human hemolytic streptococcal infection, which does not lead to joint deformity, but can recur and involve the heart, rheumatic heart disease, treatment is mostly applied to penicillin and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Rheumatoid arthritis manifests as symmetrical small joint swelling and pain in both hands, and joint deformity usually appears after two years if no systematic diagnosis and treatment is carried out, and the treatment mostly applies slow-acting anti-rheumatic drugs or biological agents. 4.Do a laboratory test to know whether it is rheumatic disease? Wrong. The diagnosis of rheumatism requires detailed medical history, physical examination, detection of autoantibodies and immune indexes, and impact tests for a comprehensive analysis before a preliminary diagnosis can be made, not based on a single test. 5, rheumatism treatment with hormones, there are side effects? Wrong. Patients with diffuse connective tissue disease with organ involvement need to apply hormone therapy, which can be applied and gradually reduced under the guidance of physicians to reduce the occurrence of drug side effects while controlling the disease well. 6.Joint deformation, treatment or not is useless? Wrong. If not treated, the situation will continue to progress, leading to more serious deformity and dysfunction. Controlling the disease can improve the life function and stop the progress of the disease. 7.When rheumatism gets better, should we stop the medicine? Wrong. After the disease is controlled, the minimum dose is needed for long-term continuous application, but there will be individualized factors.