What is arthritis ? What is Rheumatology? Who are Rheumatologists ?
Rheumatology is a field of medicine which deals with 'Auto-immune' diseases.
'Auto-immune' means diseases in which a part of your immune system, which usually protects you, gets automatically hyper activated and starts damaging your own organs.
All organs can be affected with rheumatic diseases - Joints (most common), spine, skin, muscle, eye, lungs, kidney, blood etc.
Because joints are most commonly involved, Rheumatologists are also called Joint / Arthritis.Specialists/ Immunologists. They are detectives who can detect more than 50 types of arthritis.
Rheumatic diseases can be very serious. They can affect children and young people also.
Timely treatment is necessary to prevent joint damage and even at times save lives.
(Rheumatologists are not orthosurgeons, they are physicians)