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Not only can the skin suffer from psoriasis, but sometimes also the joints - this is called Psoriatic Arthritis (aka Arthropathic Psoriasis, Psoriasis Arthropathica).
About 5-30% of psoriasis sufferers also develop Psoriatic Arthritis. Usually changes in the joints appear after 3-5 years or more after the appearance of skin psoriasis. Psoriatic Arthritis affects people of all ages, but it is found more frequently in people of middle age and the elderly.
Psoriatic Arthritis is characterized by the changes in the structure of the connective tissue. Signs of Psoriatic Arthritis are pains, stiffness, and swelling around the joints caused by the inflammation of the joints. Sometimes the pains are light and other times severe. The pains usually get worse during movement.
In the worst cases the pains are continuous.
Subsequently, changes in joint structure may become chronic with the development of irreversible deformations of the joints. Psoriatic Arthritis can even lead to physical disability.
Psoriatic Arthritis most often affects the small joints of fingers and toes, hands and feet. But it may also affect the hip, spine, knee, or elbow joints.
In the majority of cases the skin symptoms appear before the symptoms in the joints, but in some people the joints are affected first, and without any skin manifestations. In the case when Psoriatic Arthritis precedes the skin Psoriasis Symptoms it is hard to diagnose Psoriatic Arthritis from other types of Arthritis.
Psoriatic Arthritis can flow by the type of Monoarthritis (inflammation of 1 joint at a time) or Oligoarthritis (inflammation of 2-4 joints), but in the part of the patients it acquires the nature of a severe destructive Polyarthritis (inflammation of 5 or more joints at a time).
The most frequent type of Psoriatic Arthritis is the Asymmetric Oligoarthritis.
It is also possible for the development of Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS; aka Bechterew's disease, Bechterew syndrome, Marie Strümpell disease) - a form of Spondyloarthritis, that primarily affects the spine and often leads to pain and stiffness of the spine.
Psoriatic Arthritis is differentiated with Rheumatoid Arthritis (criteria of diagnostics: results of the biochemical analyses of the blood, roentgenological inspection etc.). The differentiation of Psoriatic Arthritis with Rheumatoid Arthritis may present difficulties.
Psoriatic Arthritis requires treatment not only by a dermatologist, but also by a rheumatologist.
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