Along with joint pain and swelling, about four out of 10 people with RA have related problems in other body parts, says Eric Matteson, MD, professor of medicine and chair of the department of rheumatology at Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn. RA can decrease life expectancy, but “with modern therapies, we are seeing less rheumatoid disease outside of the joints, and patients are living longer,” he says.

Here, 10 different body parts, how they're affected by RA, and what helps the symptoms.

Read more: 10 Ways Rheumatoid Arthritis Affects the Body

"Pain is a signal that your arthritis is active, and we don't want to just treat the pain, we want to treat the problem." Psoriatic arthritis is a type of inflammatory arthritis that can occur in people who have psoriasis. It can include anything from arthritis of the small joints of the hands to inflammatory arthritis of the spine to Achilles tendinitis. 

Read more: A Doctor Answers Your Questions About Psoriatic Arthritis

What is sciatica?

Sciatica is leg pain caused by a pinched nerve in the lower back. Although the pangs begin in nerve roots located on either side of the lower spine, they then course through the sciatic nerve, which runs the length of each leg from the buttock down to the foot. The leg agony, called radiculopathy, “is often worse than the back pain,” says William A. Abdu, MD, medical director of the Spine Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Usually felt in one leg, the sensation “can be intolerable,” says Birgit Ruppert, a physical therapist at the Spine Center. “Some people liken it to the nerve pain you experience if you have a toothache.”

Read more: 11 Highly Effective Solutions For Sciatica

Regular exercise can help aging adults avoid becoming more physically frail as they age, according to a study published in the Journal of Physiology.
Researchers from King’s College London and the University of Birmingham recruited 95 cycling enthusiasts aged 55 to 79 years in order to assess how the aging process affects the human body. The researchers subsequently tried to determine which physiological markers can be used to determine age.

Read more: Exercise Can Help Avoid Frailty in Older Adults

Due to overlapping clinical and immunologic features between Chikungunya virus and rheumatoid arthritis’ (RA) symptoms, Washington University in St. Louis researchers warn rheumatologists to be alert for potential misdiagnoses.

Spreading from Caribbean and Central and South America to FL, the mosquito-borne virus’ infection results in joint pain and swelling similar to RA that can last anywhere from days to over a year, according to a WUSTL press release.

Read more: Misdiagnosis Likely Due to Virus, Rheumatoid Arthritis Symptom Overlap

Up to 30% of people with psoriasis will develop psoriatic arthritis, an autoimmune disease that can lead to pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints. Psoriatic arthritis is generally divided into five subtypes, depending on which joints are affected and how many. But the system isn’t perfect. For instance, the five types don't take into accountsymptoms such as dactylitis (when the fingers and toes swell into sausages) and enthesitis(inflammation of areas near the tendons and ligaments). 

Read more: The 5 Types of Psoriatic Arthritis