Anti-Aging Information

In the earlier decades of life, rheumatoid arthritis affects three times as many women as men, but this equalizes with age, meaning men over 40 are affected with increasing frequency. Rheumatic fever is an insidious illness that starts with fatigue, weakness, joint stiffness, and pain, even before the joints begin to swell. Although 10 to 20 percent of the population who get joint pain and swelling from rheumatic fever can achieve a full recovery, at least 10 percent can go on to a relentless, crippling illness characterized by the destruction of the hands and larger joints due to the spread of inflamed tissue overlying the cartilage. Treatment ranges from aspirin products and steroids to the antimalarials (Chloroquin), gold salts, and even anticancer drugs that delay excessive tissue growth causing the inflammation.

Aging can also bring on an all too common affliction called degenerative joint disease, which is the result of simple wear and tear, with degenerative changes to the cartilage in the joints. If you happen to be an air hammer operator, you could develop this in your elbows or shoulders. Swinging a tennis racquet, throwing a baseball, or double-poling around a cross-country ski course could hasten the disease in the elbows, especially if you're prone to swinging wrong, throwing too hard, or skiing too long.

The knee is a particularly suspect joint. Running, of course, can adversely affect the knees, as do basketball, racquetball, and bicycling. Even walking around a golf course affects the knee. Heck, for all we know, sitting at the breakfast table sipping coffee could adversely affect your knees. In fact, if the knee had been designed by an engineer, he or she would have been fired years ago. Not to make a knee-jerk reaction, the simple moral of the story is to be aware as possible of your body so as not to overstress it.

Another bread-and-butter yet infuriating variety of joint disease is carpal tunnel syndrome, an overuse process that adversely affects the covering of your wrist tendons. Resulting pain stems from compression of the median nerve to your hand as it travels through an increasingly unyielding carpal tunnel with the other nerves and tendon bundles of the wrist. Characteristically, those who suffer from this painful, frequently nocturnal malady have a numbness or burning sensation from the palm into the thumb, index, and middle fingers. Those who repetitively flex or extend their wrists are most susceptible. Anti-inflammatory drugs or a wrist support (a cock-up splint) will sometimes help avoid or at least delay surgical decompression of this tunnel. Occasionally, a steroid shot under the wrist covering (the flexor retinaculum) can help avoid or at least delay sometimes inevitable surgery.

Most men ought to know about Reiter's syndrome, a condition characterized by a triad of arthritis, conjunctivitis, and urethritis. Fortunately, it is less common if you're over 40. It is, in point of fact, an affliction of young studs. Ten percent of cases can be caused by a partner's vaginal infection, and 90 percent by food poisoning. Symptoms may occur a few days to four weeks after sex. Fortunately, this form of arthritis may respond well to relatively safe anti-inflammatory drugs such as Indocin or other nonsteroidals such as ibuprofen (Advil). The attendant and somewhat nerve-wracking urethritis ("the drip") can be treated successfully with tetracycline, which works well for almost any nonspecific urethral infection (NSU).