Women and Arthritis: Why are the odds stacked against you?

 Rutba Iqbal / Awaz e Khwateen

An Indian woman’s routine consists of taking care of everyone but herself. She’s always on her feet doing the dishes, frying a snack for that unannounced guest, washing her husband’s clothes and dusting her children’s rooms. In a hectic day filled with a jam packed schedule she barely gets a moment to herself, to acknowledge the constant pain that keeps tugging at her joints. At night when she finally gets a chance to sit down, the stiffness makes it hard to relax, the constant moaning in pain is seen as whining, the joint pain never lets up.

Arthritis in women is not talked about with the intensity it deserves. Arthritis affects women more than men. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 18% of women aged over 60 years have symptomatic osteoarthritis worldwide. Nearly, 45% of women over the age of 65 years have symptoms while 70% of those over 65 years show radiological evidence of osteoarthritis. The staggering number of women with disease often feel their symptoms being dismissed and live their lives with chronic pain. Women even have higher pain scores as compared to men.

Arthritis means inflammation or swelling of one or more joints. It describes more than 100 conditions that affect the joints, tissues around the joint, and other connective tissues. Two most common types of arthritis are Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis.

 

Why women?

●      It’s your hormones

Estrogen is a sex hormone that plays an important role in the health of women. Another role that estrogen plays is that it keeps inflammation at check. Menopause is a natural progression in any woman's life but it is also characterized by decline in reproductive hormones. Decline in estrogen increases women’s susceptibility to osteoarthritis.

●      It’s your aggressive immune system

Women have a strong immunological response to foreign bodies and self-antigens which makes them more vulnerable to autoimmune diseases.  Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease and thus you play a price for your reactive immune system. 

●      It’s time to lose that extra weight

Excess weight puts greater pressure especially on the knees, contributing to increased joint wear and tear. At the point when the cartilage that covers and pads the bones of a joint erodes and separates, joint inflammation is created as the joint is diminished to bone-on-bone contact.

●      It’s your genetics

Having a family history of arthritis puts women at much greater risk. If your mother had arthritis, chances of you getting the disease in the same joint are quite high.

●      It’s your anatomy

Women’s tendons move around significantly more to accommodate childbirth. In addition to this your elastic tendons also put you at a greater risk of getting arthritis.

Despite the odds stacked against women, women often experience gender bias at the hands of medical health practitioners. They feel the doctors are often dismissive of their symptoms and that their pain is not treated with the same seriousness. Getting the unintended gender bias out of the way, we need a system that doesn’t classify women’s illness as hysteria. Ways to prevent and manage this chronic illness are already underway and Hormone Replacement Therapy is proving to be instrumental. Maintaining a healthy weight and engaging in regular exercise to stay strong and flexible are some of the preventive measures. Ladies, take some time for yourself and take an evening walk, a physically active lifestyle is the only way to go.