Joints are injured quite often, and people with an active lifestyle and athletes are especially susceptible to this. Even mild damage can lead to inflammation, resulting in a disease such as post-traumatic arthritis. The articular bag, cartilage, ligaments, muscles and tendons lose their integrity. What is post-traumatic arthritis? The ICD includes this disease under a specific code, which we will discuss later.
The disease is caused by frequent minor injuries that a person may not even notice. This provokes the progress of the destructive process and inflammation of the joint. And most often injuries occur in the knees, elbows, ankle. In rare cases, the shoulder joints and fingers are affected.
Now let's look at what factors provoke post-traumatic arthritis.
Main causes of post-traumatic arthritis
The described disease develops in people regardless ofage. Various injuries lead to the development of an inflammatory process in the joint. Most often, the cause of the pathology is:
- dislocation, when the joint bag and ligaments are damaged;
- a bruise that leads to the formation of cartilage cracks and small hemorrhages;
- repeated vibrations damage blood vessels, resulting in traumatic arthritis.
What is the ICD code for this disease
Post-traumatic arthritis, like every disease, in professional medicine has a certain code that allows you to classify the pathology. Post-traumatic arthritis, according to ICD 10, also has a code, from M00 to M25. It depends on where the pathology is localized.
Signs of disease
After various minor injuries of the joint - shocks, sprains or vibrations - there is a destruction of various tissues inside it or nearby. This causes hemorrhage and further inflammation. The joint is destroyed gradually, so the patient may not pay attention to the symptoms accompanying this process.
Post-traumatic arthritis is characterized by the following symptoms:
- increasing pain and ache in the damaged joint;
- crunching when moving;
- limited mobility;
- swelling and redness.
If the injury turned out to be serious, then the symptoms are usually pronounced. Acute post-traumatic arthritis is just like that. This often leads tobody temperature rises significantly, symptoms of intoxication of the body and leukocytosis appear.
It is important to understand that if you experience severe pain after an injury that only gets worse, you should immediately consult a doctor.
Doctors' recommendations
Now let's talk about what is carried out with the diagnosis of "post-traumatic arthritis" treatment. The fact is that many patients may not even be aware of the presence of this pathology. Seeing a doctor, as a rule, occurs only when the pain during movement becomes unbearable and difficult to perform.
But in the case of a chronic course of the disease, therapy is complex and takes a long period of time. It is not excluded the appearance of irreversible dystrophic changes in the joints. Then the problem can be solved only with the help of endoprosthetics. This is a rather complicated operation, but after it, performance is often restored.
And in order to exclude complications in advance, it is necessary to visit a doctor after an injury. He will prescribe certain diagnostic measures: X-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound. This will help determine if there is any internal damage. And if treatment is started in a timely manner, then most often complications can be avoided. The joint will function normally, and the human performance will remain.
If there is an acute course, then you need to provide the patient with urgent medical care. That is, with severe pain, swelling and redness in the joint area, the patient is placed in a medical institution fordiagnosis and treatment.
What complications can post-traumatic arthritis lead to?
When ignoring signs of discomfort in the area of the joint, the inflammatory process covers the surrounding tissues. This often leads to periarthritis, in which the periarticular tissue becomes inflamed.
The joint is gradually destroyed, deforming arthrosis develops. Synovitis may also appear with deformity of the joint itself or bursitis with bacteria entering the synovial fluid. If you continue to ignore treatment, the joint becomes stiff, and this can remain for the rest of your life.
Purulent infection and sepsis are considered the most dangerous complications. Once again, it should be emphasized that it is imperative to treat the disease, otherwise the joint may be completely destroyed.
What drugs to treat the disease?
Post-traumatic arthritis (ICD 10 M00-M25) is a very serious disease and requires the same approach to treatment. Only a doctor should select drugs for the treatment of this pathology. Moreover, this should be done after a thorough examination. Required to reveal:
- presence of hemorrhage;
- fabrics that are damaged;
- degree of inflammation.
In this case, an effective therapy will be selected. You will most likely need to prescribe certain medications:
- Painkillers for internal use. They relieve aches and discomfort, especially when presentacute period immediately after injury. The use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (Naproxen, Indomethacin, Diclofenac, Aspirin or analgesics) justifies itself. If severe unbearable pain is present, then corticosteroids are prescribed: Prednisolone, Diprospan, Kenalog and others.
- External anti-inflammatory drugs that relieve pain and warm up the joint before therapeutic exercises. It is better that they have a vegetable base. It's great if they are in the composition with glucosamine and collagen. This will ensure the restoration of the joint. The use of "Voltaren", "Collagen Ultra" is acceptable.
- Preparations that restore cartilage tissue, namely vitamin complexes, for example, "Osteomed" or "Osteovit", dietary supplements: "Dihydroquercetin Plus" or plant extracts, such as dandelion root. Chondroprotectors are also often prescribed, the most popular of them are Teraflex, Chondroitin.
What is ancillary therapies?
What else to treat post-traumatic arthritis? These methods do not replace drug therapy, but help to quickly restore the damaged joint. These include:
- Therapeutic exercise. Thanks to her, freedom of movement will return. With a severe injury without a fracture, exercises can be started after a week. The timely start of therapeutic exercises will help to develop the joint faster. This is especially true in the chronic form of the disease, otherwise the bone tissue will grow, and the jointbecome stiff.
- Massage and physiotherapy methods that effectively stop the destructive process and relieve inflammation. The use of inductothermy, UHF, paraffin applications is shown. For example, post-traumatic arthritis of the finger is well treated with such methods, because sprains and bruises of the limbs are a common type of injury.
In cases where the process is severely neglected, conservative treatment is indispensable. Surgery can help a person return to working capacity and allow him to lead an active lifestyle again.
Types of surgical treatments
An advanced form of post-traumatic arthritis can be cured in an operative way. This treatment has several types. So, it can consist of:
- in total or partial surgical removal of the synovium (synovectomy);
- in the stabilization of damaged structures of the knee joint (arthroscopy);
- reconstruction of the joint (arthroplasty).
It should be noted that post-traumatic arthritis of the knee joint is often treated with the latter method.
To fully restore the joint, it must be developed to restore its mobility. This is what therapeutic exercises do. In combination with massage and physiotherapy, this method works very effectively.
What diet to choose for post-traumatic arthritis?
Due attention should be paid to good nutritionin case of joint injury. So, the patient necessarily needs a large amount of calcium in food, vitamins D and A. Flax seed and seafood are also very useful for this disease. But purines, animal proteins and s alt are not recommended. After all, all this can provoke gout, which is one of the frequent consequences of post-traumatic arthritis.
