It is an inflammatory disease that affects the connective tissue in the joints. Once again, the body interprets something in itself as foreign and tries to destroy it by causing a painful inflammatory response. Rheumatoid arthritis affects 2 percent of the entire population. Women are affected two to three times more often than men and are usually diagnosed between the ages of twenty and sixty. There seems to be a genetic predisposition toward the development of rheumatoid arthritis as rheumatoid arthritis appears to run in families.
Classic symptoms are warm, swollen, reddened, and painful joints.
The finger joints are most commonly affected, but any joint may become involved. The body produces antibodies, rheumatoid factor, and sometimes antinuclear antibodies. Fertility is normal in women with rheumatoid arthritis. The disease may go into remission in as many as 75 percent of women while they are pregnant. During the postpartum period the majority of women experience a flare in the disease.