Rheumatoid arthritis symptoms are mainly joint symptoms, the following is to introduce you to the joint symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and the functional classification of joints. 1.Morning stiffness Morning stiffness refers to the tightness, sleepy board, stiffness of the joints after the patient wakes up in the morning or after getting up in the morning, and discomfort or limitation of limb movement, which is reduced after the activity. Morning stiffness is one of the important diagnostic bases of rheumatoid arthritis. The reason is that the affected joints do not move overnight, and the soft tissues inside and outside the joints become edematous due to poor circulation and lose their normal flexibility, thus the joints do not move well; after a period of activity, the edematous fluid penetrates into the lymph or small veins and disappears, and the soft tissues inside and outside the joints regain their flexibility, thus the joints tend to move flexibly again and the stiffness disappears. The morning stiffness of this disease is mostly found in the finger and wrist joints. Morning stiffness can be classified as mild, moderate or severe: mild stiffness is relieved within one hour of rising in the morning; moderate stiffness is relieved within 1-4 hours of rising in the morning; severe stiffness is relieved only after 4 hours of rising in the morning or throughout the day. 2, pain Pain is one of the typical symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Often the pain is first in the finger, wrist, toe and ankle joints, or single, or multiple, one after another, and gradually crosses over to the elbow, shoulder, knee, hip and temporomandibular joints, mostly symmetrical onset. The degree of pain is related to the severity of the lesion and the tolerance of the individual, and is often aggravated by weather changes, cold stimuli, and mood swings. The pain is characterized by aggravation at rest and with sustained activity and decreases after appropriate light activity. The pain is caused by increased pressure in the joint cavity due to synovitis and the accumulation of inflammatory metabolites that overstimulate the free nerve endings. In the early stage of rheumatoid arthritis, when the pain is wandering in the small joints of the limbs, the pain is mild; when the pain gradually involves the large joints from the small joints of the limbs and the pain site is relatively fixed from wandering, the pain is more severe. When the joint pain is persistent and severe, the limb movement is limited, mostly in the active stage. When the disease is relatively stable and the joint is in dull pain, it is mostly in remission. 3, swelling Joint swelling is a very important objective sign of rheumatoid arthritis. It is manifested as diffuse swelling around the joints, small joints of the limbs are easily swollen, finger joints are mostly swollen in the shape of a pike, and knee joints are mostly swollen in the shape of a crane’s knee. The early stage of swelling is caused by synovial congestion, edema, joint cavity exudation and peri-articular tissue edema; the middle and late stages are mostly caused by fibrous tissue hyperplasia. The swelling of the joint and local skin color changes are related to the development of the pathology. The affected joints are not very swollen, the local skin is not red, the swelling spreads slowly to other joints, and the disease is relatively stable, which is mostly insidious. The swelling of the affected joints is obvious, the local skin is red, and the swelling spreads to other joints faster, which is mostly the case of acute development. x-ray examination shows that the soft tissue of the swollen joints has increased in density, and the joint space is slightly widened due to the increase of exudate. The degree of joint swelling can be classified as mild, moderate or severe: mild if the joint is swollen but not yet exceeding the bone prominence near the joint; moderate if the joint is more obviously swollen and the swelling is level with the bone prominence, so that the soft tissue depression around the joint disappears; severe if the joint is highly swollen and the swelling is higher than the bone prominence nearby. 4.Joint rubbing sound When the patient’s joints move, small twisting sounds can be touched with the palm of the hand or a sense of snow grip, generally easy to touch the elbow and knee joints, which suggests that synovitis has developed to the joint cartilage. 5, activity disorders are common signs of rheumatoid arthritis Early joint activity disorders are mainly due to inflammation of the synovium and surrounding tissues, edema, fluid in the joint cavity, increased intra-articular pressure and severe pain, in order to reduce pain and muscle spasm, flexor muscle to maintain involuntary contraction and relaxation of the extensor muscles, resulting in activity disorders; middle and late joint activity disorders are mainly due to inflammation of the joint capsule and tendons, resulting in fibrous tissue hyperplasia, cartilage and bone erosion. In the later stages, fibrous and osseous ankylosis of the bone secondary to osteophytes leads to narrowing and even disappearance of the joint space, which gradually leads to joint dislocation or fixed deformation and eventually to complete loss of joint mobility. The manifestations of each joint movement disorder are various. Finger joints may be characterized by poor grip and reduced grip strength; wrist joints may be characterized by dorsiflexion or palmar flexion, inversion and abduction; shoulder joints may be characterized by limited supination, flexion and extension, rotation and inability to dress and comb hair; temporomandibular joints may be characterized by difficulty in opening mouth and chewing; knee joints may be characterized by difficulty in flexion and extension and walking and squatting; ligament fixation of the laryngeal ring arytenoid joint may cause difficulty in swallowing and hoarseness, etc. Each joint activity disorder, leading to and aggravating the atrophy of skeletal muscle. 6, joint deformity rheumatoid arthritis disease to the late stage can appear joint deformity. As the muscles and ligaments around the joints are damaged, the joints produce a particular deformity and abnormal movement. Rheumatoid arthritis to hand and foot deformities are the most characteristic, but also more common. They are called “rheumatoid hands” and “rheumatoid feet”, respectively. This is the typical “mark” of such rheumatoid arthritis patients, common hand deformities are: ulnar deviation (metacarpophalangeal joint subluxation, the whole hand extends to the outside); gooseneck deformity (proximal phalangeal joint hyperextension, distal phalangeal joint flexion); buttonhole deformity (proximal interphalangeal joint flexion, distal phalangeal joint hyperextension); chicken claw deformity (finger intrinsic muscle (contracture of the intrinsic muscles of the fingers and wrinkling of the joint capsule and skin), etc. Common features of foot deformities include metatarsophalangeal joint subluxation and tibial ectropion, as well as deviation to the fibular side and metatarsophalangeal joint deviation to the metatarsal side, which can cause severe pain and walking difficulties.