How arthritis and hepatitis are linked to each other? This is the topic of interest in this article if you have both diseases and are keen to find any relationship between them than you are on the right place. At inoesis.org we provide good research based information related to arthritis . As arthritis is also associated with hepatitis. So in this article we would integrate information of both diseases with each other so that you can know about your disease process very well. This can be a good informative article for health professionals .
What is Arthritis
Arthritis is an inflammatory condition of joints. It causes wear and tear of joint structures. It causes joint pain, joint swelling, joint stiffness and redness or hotness of joint. Arthritis is causes by many conditions like age related conditions , traumatic injury, infection of joint , autoimmune disease or other disease like hepatitis C virus infection. Symptoms mentioned above can be present as combined or separately. Its treatment includes acetaminophen , ibuprofen or Non Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) as medicine .
What is Hepatitis
Hepatitis is the inflammation of liver. Any insult or injury causes damage to liver hepatocytes. Viruses like Hepatitis B virus, Hepatitis C virus, Hepatitis D virus , Hepatitis E virus mostly causes Hepatitis. But there are a lot of other conditions which can also cause hepatitis like drug related hepatitis , autoimmune hepatitis ,Toxins, Alcohols and Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH).Signs and symptoms of hepatitis are Fever, Jaundice, abdominal pain, dark color urine, clay stool, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite and joint pains. Treatment of Hepatitis depends upon the type of hepatitis and virus causing it . like antiviral medicines are used in viral hepatitis.
Link Between Arthritis and Hepatitis
There is a strong link between arthritis and hepatitis. In the presence of one disease someone may develop the other disease .
- Like When ever hepatitis occurs in its acute phase of disease it can have symptoms which causes joint pains . This is arthralgias. It is directly caused due to the onset of hepatitis (Which can be caused by any reason). In this scenario hepatitis caused joint pains.
- Similarly people in the presence of Rheumatoid Arthritis may likely develop autoimmune hepatitis. Here arthritis caused hepatitis.
- In other cases people who are being treated with Hepatitis medications may develop joint pains like with peginterferon and ribavirin. In this scenario treatment of hepatitis caused joint pains.
- Similarly long lasting hepatitis disease like hepatitis C virus infection can cause arthritis. In this scenario a third invader of liver caused hepatitis which in turn caused arthritis.
So in above said examples there is a strong relationship between two disease of arthritis and hepatitis.
Hepatitis C and Arthritis
How Does Hepatitis C causes Arthritis
Your immune system makes antibodies , When hepatitis C virus infects human body. These antibodies acts against virus. These antibodies are just like prepared defense instruments which immediately react whenever they find any thing related to virus. But the drawback of this is anything means anything whether it is our own body structure or not . So these antibodies detects joints cell as virus like structures and starts damaging them. As a result we find that these is joint pains in Hepatitis C Virus infection.
How Much patients with Hepatitis C viral disease can get Arthralgia.
20 % of individuals with hepatitis C Virus can get joint pains (arthralgia). This is significant amount when you link two things.
Which Symptoms First Appear Hepatitis C Virus or Arthritis
when we study literature , we find that arthritis symptoms appears earlier than hepatitis. If you are having both symptoms of hepatitis and arthritis than you should also check for Hepatitis C virus infection. When ever you have transition of disease of hepatitis or arthritis .When hepatitis C virus infects body. It stimulates immune system . Immune system reacts on joints and damages them. So at this stage immune system become more reactive than virus. So virus is unable to fully infect Liver and show up hepatitis symptoms. As a result patients feel more pains in joints than hepatitis symptoms. So you should check Hepatitis C virus status of every person who has arthritis .
Why Arthritis Symptoms Appear Before Hepatitis C Viral Infection.
The answer to this question is that hepatitis C virus does not appear with full extent in start but our immune system starts working against this virus. So activated immune system when interact with joint they show damaging response earlier than the damage to the liver . This is the reason that joint pains develops earlier than the symptoms of liver damage (Hepatitis).