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What Does Arthralgia Indicate Despite The Absence Of Pain In The Legs?
Question: I have arthritis in many joints and they are painful. Recently I had my knee replaced and went for my one year post surgery appointment. I had no pain in my new knee but the surgeon wrote that I had "Arthralgia of the right lower leg." I'm on Google looking at the word Arthralgia and there are many definitions including the difference between arthritis and arthralgia. I also have Crohns disease. This was also mentioned in the definitions. Help.
Brief Answer:
Information
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Arthralgia is a general term meaning painful joint. It's a descriptive term.
If you don't have pain in your right lower leg, your doctor either made a mistake or was put in a diagnosis for purposes of coding and needed to have a diagnosis.
Because you had pain in the knee in the past, and as your appointment may have been for a follow up on that, he used that non-specific term for a diagnosis.
I assume the type of arthritis you had your knee replace for was osteoarthritis - arthritis that is caused by wear and tear.
But I would bring up the Crohn's disease with your orthopedic doctor, and the joint pain with your gastroenterologist.
There may be a genetic component for when arthritis and Crohn's occur in the same person.
Also, during a flare-up with bowel inflammation, the gut can be "leaky", causing the body to be exposed to antigens it isn't normally exposed to and causing a flare-up of joint pain.
I'm including a link from Harvard Health that might help you with information about the association between the two. You can't just click on it, unfortunately, but you can copy and paste it into your search bar to go to it.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/digestive-health/arthritis-associated-with-inflammatory-bowel-disease
Hope I have answered your query.
Take care
Regards,
Dr Bonnie Berger-Durnbaugh, General & Family Physician
Information
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Arthralgia is a general term meaning painful joint. It's a descriptive term.
If you don't have pain in your right lower leg, your doctor either made a mistake or was put in a diagnosis for purposes of coding and needed to have a diagnosis.
Because you had pain in the knee in the past, and as your appointment may have been for a follow up on that, he used that non-specific term for a diagnosis.
I assume the type of arthritis you had your knee replace for was osteoarthritis - arthritis that is caused by wear and tear.
But I would bring up the Crohn's disease with your orthopedic doctor, and the joint pain with your gastroenterologist.
There may be a genetic component for when arthritis and Crohn's occur in the same person.
Also, during a flare-up with bowel inflammation, the gut can be "leaky", causing the body to be exposed to antigens it isn't normally exposed to and causing a flare-up of joint pain.
I'm including a link from Harvard Health that might help you with information about the association between the two. You can't just click on it, unfortunately, but you can copy and paste it into your search bar to go to it.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/digestive-health/arthritis-associated-with-inflammatory-bowel-disease
Hope I have answered your query.
Take care
Regards,
Dr Bonnie Berger-Durnbaugh, General & Family Physician
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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