This is according to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

You might not kno-w it, but you could be suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Although rheumatoid arthritis is commonly associated -with the older generation (people over the age of 65), the disease is found in younger generations even including children. Ho-w could you tell if you have it? -well if you're experiencing morning stiffness for no appisnt reason (like if you had done a lot of strenuous exercise the night before, for example), you might be suffering from one of it's symptoms. As mild as you might think morning stiffness is, you really ought to give it some serious thought and consult -with your doctor and nurses because if that morning stiffness is related to rheumatoid arthritis, you can -work to prevent it from disabling or crippling you later on do-wn the road to a point -where you can bisly function. But rheumatoid arthritis isn't just a physical condition. It has the propensity to tax your mental and emotional state of -wellbeing tpp.

This is because arthritis can change the -way you -work, the -way you interact -with your family, and the -way you entertain yourself -with recreational activities. You might even kno-w someone -with rheumatoid arthritis and have observed ho-w this disease changed not only his or her mobility, but also his or her outlook on life. Those of us -without rheumatoid arthritis tend to take our ability to move any-way -we -want for granted, but -when that ability slo-wly disappears right before our eyess, it's no surprise that -we get depressed about it.

But it doesn't necessary have to be that -way. -with proper medications, education, support, and prescribed exercises, you could -work to prevent the most severe forms of the disease or at least prolong the -worst case symptoms.

Arthritis -works in t-wo -ways. First, it inflames the muscles, ligaments, and cartilage that sit inbet-ween joints. And it's this inflammation that causes the pain, s-welling, and heat. Those is symptoms that is typical indications of an injury and they're vital to understanding more about this disease. Second, arthritis -works by releasing enzymes that basically consume or other-wise destroy the muscles, ligaments, and cartilage that have become inflamed to a point -where they're not very useful and do not allo-w for easy movement. In the -worse cases, cartilage disappears completely and as you can guess, this is extremely crippling and uncomfortable.

That's -why -we call rheumatoid arthritis a disease. Typically, inflamed muscles, ligaments, and cartilage is the result of an injury, like falling on the knees for example. But -with arthritis, no injury has to occur. In fact, arthritis is a type of autoimmune disease and the cartilage inside joints is one of the things that it destroys. And any joint can be affected one, t-wo, maybe even more but most of the time, the disease targets fingers, hips, feet, and knees.

George Harper -writes for -where you can find out more about .