♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet. ♪
(claps)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We're the most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Hey Brad, we're gonna talk about rheumatoid arthritis.
Do you have it?
You must see this video for signs, symptoms and treatment.
- Right.
This is one of those things that,
I don't know if it's my age or what,
but I've been seeing more and more friends,
family members and patients, with the diagnosis
and it's like, I didn't know enough about it
so I was like, I want to get some more details.
- Time to get some information and education.
- Yep, and share it with the viewers.
- By the way, if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos how to stay healthy, fit, pain-free
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- There you go.
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- There you go. - Cordless massager.
Handheld massager.
You can also go to Facebook Bob and Brad.
It's pinned to the top of the page.
This is a nice massager, Brad. - Oh, yeah.
- I mean, for the price, for 40 bucks, I mean.
- Right, yep.
- Most of these are like a hundred bucks.
- Right, and if you're reciprocating
it's a good value.
- It's percussing. - Right.
Reciprocating, percussing?
I thought it was the same.
- Reciprocating is a saw, isn't it?
We digress. - Anyways, let's go on
with rheumatoid.
So, like I had mentioned, Bob,
and what really got me going on this is.
We had a guest speaker, about a year ago, on rheumatoid.
A family member of mine just got diagnosed with it.
And actually another one and then, you know,
over the years you see it with patients.
And a lot of people are wondering,
like right now, I have--
- Arthritis. - Stiffness in my fingers.
I get up in the morning and it's like,
and particularly one of my finger joints is really stiff
and it gets painful.
And I'm wondering, maybe it's RA?
- If you notice, that's your middle finger, by the way.
It's not being over-used is it?
- Bob, this is a family show.
Let's keep it intact. - All right!
- So anyways, so what is rheumatoid arthritis?
Let's get right to it on that point.
It's a chronic disease and the difference between,
there's quite a few differences between rheumatoid
and your typical osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis is like someone who has a knee replacement
or a hip replacement--
- Yeah, it's just the wearing out of the joint, basically.
- Right, and it's you know, one or two joints.
- Right, it can be single joints.
There's ones that are predominate.
- Exactly, a lot of weight-bearing things.
- A lot of weigh-bearing joints.
- But the big difference with RA, it's a systemic problem.
It's an autoimmune disease, in other words,
your body is-- - Attacking itself.
- Exactly, so it's one of those things that if you have it,
you need to be aware of it,
because there's things you can do.
We're gonna talk about near the end of the video
on how to take care of it.
- And by systemic, we mean it's affecting your whole body.
It's not just affect the joint.
Maybe you feel fatigue and stuff like that because of it.
- Right, and we're gonna get in those symptoms as well, too.
So who has it?
What are the statistic on who have it?
Most commonly diagnosed with people
at the ages between 30 and 60.
- Interesting.
- Which I didn't realize is was down to the 30s.
- I didn't realize that either.
- But that was very interesting.
And also there's three times more females
than males that have it.
- And I was aware of that,
only from the fact that almost, to be honest with you,
the vast majority of the ones I see are female.
- Sure, you mean in the clinic.
- Yeah, I can't even remember too many men that have had it.
- Right, well, it's three to one, so.
Some of the symptoms.
Now these can vary to a degrees,
but these are common ones.
Joint pain lasting greater than six weeks.
So it's an on-going pain.
- And probably multiple joints.
- Right, exactly, often time--
- Oh, I'm sorry, I'm jumpin' ahead.
- Don't worry, Bob, it's fine to repeat things.
Things come and go in our minds.
(laughing)
- Afraid it does.
- So a little repetition at our age is helpful.
And often times morning stiffness.
Getting out of the bed is very uncomfortable,
reports of people with their feet being very painful
when you put weight-bearing through it.
And if it lasts longer than 30 minutes,
that's another potential sign.
- That morning stiffness lasts more than 30 minutes.
- Yep, 30 minutes.
- Because you're gonna have stiffness
with a lot of arthritis, your osteoarthritis too.
But generally as soon as you're up and moving
it gets better right away.
- Right, but this lasts longer than 30 minutes.
And it's again, multiple joints,
often times some of the smaller joints in the fingers.
There's actually a diagram you can find,
it will show the most common sites,
but it is throughout the body.
- Most common joints, you mean?
- Yep, another one, there could be lumps under the skin.
Often times in the fingers.
- Okay. - And then...
- Those aren't the Heberden's nodes,
I think those are more with osteoarthritis.
You know a location-wise on them?
- No, well, more commonly in the fingers.
- Okay.
- But they can be other places, as well.
And again, like you said,
general fatigue is one. - Right.
- And low-grade fever.
- That's probably one of the bigger indicators to me
is that general fatigue that you just don't have
the get up and go.
It got up and went.
- That being said, and of course these, it comes and goes.
People who have RA, they talk about flares.
And it will just flare up
where it's painful just to get out of bed and just walk.
It's not just for six o'clock on the morning
but it can be throughout the whole morning, up til noon,
that kind of a thing. - Sure.
- It's not easy to diagnose, necessarily.
So just, if you're listening to this video,
and you have all of these symptoms,
and you think, "Oh, I must have RA."
It's not that easy.
You need to go to a doctor
and the doctor's gonna take a medical history
look at your past.
They're gonna take a physical exam.
Look at you right in front of them
and do a good physical exam.
Then a blood test,
and there's a number of things that sed rate,
there's about two or three different--
[Both] Indicators--
- That they'll look out for that.
And then they'll possibly, scans for your joints.
See if you have some actual joint disease.
- Joint damage.
- Because it's autoimmune disease attacks,
typically join tissue and it can be permanent.
You know, if your joint is damaged by RA,
and it's to a certain degree, it's not gonna get better,
from what I find.
- And you definitely do want to get diagnosed
because, you're gonna talk about some of the things,
the treatments, right?
- Right, treatment options that are available.
And the first one, I would say this is the first,
it depends on the person, is medication.
There's a number of medications.
Now, the bad thing about the medications,
there can be some bad side effects.
The woman that we had on--
- Yeah, that's right.
She mentioned the side effects right away.
- Right, right--
- Almost disabling, weren't they?
- Right, if you google Bob and Brad, RA,
rheumatoid arthritis, that should come up right away.
And hers yeah, it was very severe.
And actually now, I know her,
she is going with no medication,
she treats through diet, primarily.
And quite successfully.
So she's, that's been working out.
- And as you've mentioned,
as your second treatment here is the diet.
- Right, and I think that's pretty much across the board.
As well as our third one.
But you need to make diet changes, anti-inflammatory food.
- You know, the more you read about this, Brad,
the more you realize that you can actually
use foods, almost as medicine.
- Right.
- In a lot of instances.
I'm a big believer.
I read the book called, "How Not To Die"
and it talks a lot about that with rheumatoid arthritis.
- And you're still here so the book must work.
- Yeah, that's right.
I'm still kickin'.
- Yeah, we'll keep a little light-hearted note on this.
And that's of course the third one,
which we know is very important,
as therapists, is exercise.
The thing is, you need to exercise smart.
There's certain, you're not gonna go lift heavy weights.
You're not gonna go run a 5K as fast as you can,
that type of thing.
But some aerobic exercise,
and everyone's gonna have different exercises
that may be good for them.
Dependent on what you like to do,
what your body tolerates, which joints are affected.
- Really try to keep movin'.
- You really need to keep those muscles moving,
get those joints moving.
- And you may have to deal with it during flare ups,
you may not be able to exercise as much,
or even at all.
But as soon as it calms down, get back to it.
- Right, right.
I mentioned this before,
but there's a woman where I swim,
and she's got arthritis and she's very particular.
She'll let you know, "If you're swimming by me,
"do not touch me."
- Oh, really.
- 'Cause if you're swimming, your arms go over
and you bang hands, it hurts.
Just without arthritis.
I can just imagine, with arthritis, if you,
I call it a hand kiss.
If you get one of those when you're swimming.
It would be extremely painful.
- I am not a swimmer, I didn't realize
there's these things going on, Brad.
- Well, ho ho, if you're lap swimming,
a hand kiss can be painful.
- All right. (laughing)
- You didn't meet your wife that way, did you?
- No, Bob. - All right.
- I should have known something like that was gonna come up.
- Yeah (laughing).
- Again, these are the things you really need to know.
But you really need to see a doctor
to get diagnosed properly.
And then research the options for treatment.
Do what works-- - Ask your doctor about diet.
- Right, some doctors are gonna go to it.
Some are gonna say, they focus on medications.
- Exactly.
- So you gotta get the right doctor for you.
- Very good.
- Good luck with it and take care.
- Thanks, Brad.
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