What is polychondritis?
Polychondritis or relapsed polychondritis is an unusual disease that many doctors feel that they may be autoimmune. In this condition, the cartilage in the body is most affected, although other connective tissues can be involved. The cartilage begins to deteriorate, which can cause joint pain and affect the ears and/or nose, resulting in swelling and inflammation.
The name relapsed polychondritis is important because the condition tends to occur in episodes that have several weeks. After the pain of light can retreat but returns with another attack. Finally, repeated attacks can damage cartilage, change the appearance of the nose and ears and affect a certain function of other areas of the body.
The main symptoms of polychondritis include ear inflammation, breast pain and nose swelling. People often have fever, overall pain and joint pain during episodes. Sometimes the condition causes difficulty breathing, husky voice or cough.
In complicated lights, other parts of the body can be involved, such as heart or eyes. In particular, some people note that their hearing is affected and could report the loss of balance or have dizziness of hearing changes. Another symptom may be rashes on different parts of the body, but it should be noted that people may have fewer symptoms and still have this condition and that each light can have different symptoms.
people should be present with symptoms of fever, swollen ears and joint pain, doctors may want to test polychondritis. Testing is usually performed by the cartilage pattern to see if it has characteristic symptoms of damage. Other tests could be carried out, including blood that can look for discrepancies in white blood numbers and cardiovascular tests to see if the heart is disturbed.
If diagnosed, there are several ways to treat polychondritis. People with mild cases can react well when they use noSteroid anti -inflammatory drugs (NSAID), which can be as mild as ibuprofen or can be stronger NSAID. Some people do not have sufficient relief from inflammation with these drugs and other common strategy is to treat flares of steroids like Prednison. Alternatively there are medicines that are immunosuppressants or that block an immune response. Some people responded well to immunosuppressive drug treatment, which strongly suggests that this disease is autoimmune in nature.
people with this disease will need careful monitoring with a doctor and often with a rheumatologist. Since cartilage damage accumulates with repeated eruptions, there is no discomfort, but also the risk of serious conditions such as the trachea collapse that immediately blocks breathing. Another complication for some people is the development of serious problems that could cause congestive heart failure or require immediate repair.
Although polychondritis is rare, it is not as rare,That it does not require greater study and understanding, with the eye, how to find out how to prevent disease. Although medical scientists now know some things about disease, such as the fact that it is most commonly found in middle age, they still do not know enough. Further research is needed to find more effective treatment and possibly to develop a drug.