Although RA emerges most commonly in thirty to fifty-year-olds, it can strike at any age, even in children and the elderly.  In general, the older you are when RA strikes, the milder your symptoms are likely to be.  Your chances of developing RA is about one to two percent, while your odds increase to two to four percent if a sibling has RA and to twelve to fifteen percent if your identical twin has RA.  The risk for a child born of a mother with RA is somewhat greater, but the possibility is so low that it is not considered a strong factor.  The female sex hormone appears to be associated with a higher risk for developing RA, which explains why women are three times more likely to be affected than men.  Childbirth, breast-feeding and menopause tend to induce painful RA flare-ups, but on the other hand, symptoms tend to lessen during pregnancy.

Unfortunately, there is no telltale factor that can cause rheumatoid arthritis.  However, the perplex correlation of genetics, diet, hormones and infection can produce this debilitating illness.

If you think you have RA, you would feel stiff in the morning, for more than an hour, an suffer from pain and swelling in your joints.  Some people even experience weight loss, anemia, low-grade fever and afternoon fatigue.  Frequently, patients experience a sudden worsening of joint pain and swelling called a “flare”.  The reasons for this is unknown, however, weather change, hormone levels, infection and stress can aggravate RA.

To determine if you have RA, a rheumatologist would perform a physical exam in addition to routine blood tests such as a rheumatoid factor (RF) and an erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR).  Even though seventy to eighty percent of RA patients have RF in their blood, its presence does not automatically indicate RA, as this blood test can also suggest other disorders.  Moreover, thirty to forty percent of the elderly have weak or moderate positive RF results and do not have RA.  However, in general, RA patients with a positive RF tend to have more severe symptoms than those with a lower level.  Another blood test, the ESR, is conducted to determine the rate at which the red blood cells settle to the bottom of a test tube, which indicates the intensity of inflammation.  The higher the ESR, the higher the inflammation, and vice versa.

Between five and twenty percent of people with mild RA, usually experience a spontaneous disappearance of symptoms within the first two years.  However, more than fifty percent of those will have a recurrence of RA of different intensity.  Another five to twenty percent will have a more progressive course, more often leading to some joint deformity.  Usually more than eighty percent will become partially disabled within twelve years of diagnosis and sixteen percent will become completely disabled.  This is why RA is called the “crippling arthritis” and its course needs a defensive action.