How can I know if my pain is from aging or rheumatoid arthritis?

Morning stiffness that lasts more than 15-20 minutes may be a sign of rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis. In this video, rheumatologist Paula Rackoff, MD, describes the difference.

Transcript

00:00

If you have morning stiffness that lasts more than 15 to 20 minutes, then we start to wonder whether there's

00:07

a kind of inflammatory arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis, going on.

00:15

[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:23

Usually, we describe aging pain or osteoarthritis pain as pain and stiffness after we've been sitting or lying

00:33

down for a long time. So that's when you wake up in the morning and you have 5 to 15 minutes of morning stiffness.

00:42

Or the classic one is you go to the movies, and then two hours later, you actually can't leave the movies, because your knees feel so stiff.

00:51

We call those movie theater knees. And that's classical osteoarthritis. If you have morning stiffness that lasts more than 15

00:59

to 20 minutes, then we start to wonder whether there's a kind of inflammatory arthritis,

01:06

such as rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis, going on. It's really the degree and the duration of morning stiffness.

01:15

In general, with osteoarthritis, although there are always exceptions, you don't get swollen joints.

01:22

So if your knees are swollen and you don't have any kind of cartilage tears,

01:30

then we start to worry about inflammatory arthritis, which means rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis.

01:37

Even with arthritis in the hands, the bumps that people often get are bumps.

01:44

They're not big swollen fingers. So swelling is really specific to inflammatory arthritis,

01:52

such as rheumatoid and psoriatic. [AUDIO LOGO]