Symptoms of psoriatic arthritis

General symptoms of psoriatic arthritis include symptoms of both psoriasis and arthritis. Normally, patients suffer from severe pain on the joints. It can even get extended to knees, wrists, toes and ankles of the feet. Because of the swelling and red colour on the joints, it might appear like sausage. The inflamed joints can be hot to touch also.

Symptoms of Psoriatic Arthritis

Joint stiffness is another common symptom of this disease. This becomes worst in early morning and after rest.  The pain gets reduced after continuous movements. Sometimes, it might have symptoms of rheumatic arthritis, causing pain on many joints in symmetrical manner. Rather than only on the joints, it causes tenderness of the spine also, that result in back pain, especially in the lower back, upper back, buttocks and neck. This form of spondylitis is more commonly found in men, compared to women. Rarely, some patients get joints damaged rapidly. This is known as multilans. This requires urgent treatment, otherwise can be very destructive. Some get inflammation on the tendons behind the heel or cartilages linked to ribs. This results in feet pain and chest pain respectively. Those who get inflammation behind the heel will have pain while walking, jumping or climbing steps. Altogether, psoriatic arthritis involves lot of pain and patients usually find it very difficult even to move.

Very few suffer from irritation on eyes, lungs and aorta. Irritation on the eyes might result in a condition called iritis. Eyes might get red and painful while seeing bright light. Problems around lungs cause to have chest pain and breathing problems and inflammation around aorta results in heart failure. Red patches on the skin are one of the common symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. Even the scalp and knees found to get spots, silver or gray in colour. Even the involvement of nail is commonly seen. Some get abnormal growth in their nails, which even result in thickening of nails. Acne is also commonly found in psoriatic arthritis patients.

Types

There are 5 types of psoriatic arthritis and the specific symptoms are different for each type. For asymmetric psoriatic arthritis, severe pain is normally found on left toes and right fingers. In symmetric psoriatic arthritis swelling is found to affect both sides of the body. Psoriatic spondylitis patients suffer from severe back pain. Arthritis multilans is the most painful form of psoriatic arthritis. In distal interphalangeal psoriatic arthritis, joints near to the nails get affected mostly.