Common symptoms of rheumatic diseases

  Rheumatology is a young clinical medical discipline, and because of its late start, people’s knowledge of rheumatism is still shallow, which can easily lead to underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis. Rheumatic diseases refer to diseases that mainly affect joints, muscles, bones and soft tissues around joints, such as tendons, ligaments, bursae and fascia. The common ones are autoimmune connective tissue disease, systemic vasculitis, bone and joint lesions, and their common symptoms are: 1. Fever is a common symptom of rheumatic diseases, which can be low fever, moderate fever, or high fever, often manifested as irregular fever, usually without chills, antibiotics are ineffective, while the blood sedimentation is fast, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, adult Steyr disease, acute neutrophilic febrile dermatosis, lipofuscinosis etc. can be fever as the first symptom.  2, pain is the main symptom of rheumatism, but also an important cause of functional disorders. Among the pain of rheumatic diseases, pain originating from joints and their accessory structures is the most common, however, pain in limbs and trunk positions can also be seen in visceral and neurological lesions. Joint pain, neck and shoulder pain, low back pain, and heel pain are often the main manifestations of rheumatism, sometimes accompanied by swelling of the joints. Rheumatoid arthritis often has symmetrical joint swelling and pain, especially in the finger joints and wrist joints; ankylosing spondylitis has low back pain, which is aggravated at rest and may be accompanied by heel pain and red eyes; rheumatic polymyalgia has neck and shoulder pain, pain in the limb band muscles and muscle weakness.  3, skin and mucous membrane symptoms: systemic lupus erythematosus, dermatomyositis/polymyositis, leukodystrophy, lipofuscinosis, dry syndrome may have rash, photosensitivity, oral ulcers, vulvar ulcers, eye symptoms, reticular cyanosis, skin ulcers, etc.  4. Raynaud’s sign: whitening of the finger (toe) end when it is cold or emotional, then purple, red or with numbness and pain of the finger (toe) end, serious skin ulceration may be seen in scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, mixed connective tissue disease, systemic lupus erythematosus.  5. Muscle may have muscle pain, muscle weakness, elevated muscle enzymes, and electromyography showing myogenic damage, such as dermatomyositis/polymyositis, mixed connective tissue disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, etc.  6. Systemic damage: Some rheumatic diseases, especially autoimmune connective tissue diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis, can have damage to multiple organs, such as manifesting as cardiac inflammation (pericarditis, myocarditis, endocarditis), renal damage (proteinuria, hematuria, swelling, hypertension, renal failure), hematologic system (leukopenia, erythrocytopenia, thrombocytopenia, capacitated blood, etc.), the Respiratory system (interstitial pneumonia, pulmonary hypertension, pleural effusion), digestive system (liver function impairment, jaundice), etc.  7, often have autoantibodies: anti-nuclear antibodies, anti-ds-DNA antibodies, anti-ENA antibodies, anti-platelet antibodies, anti-cardiolipin antibodies, rheumatoid factor, anti-CCP antibodies, etc.