It's important to be forthcoming with your doctor about your concerns. Don’t leave any symptoms out in the process of describing your condition. This is the best way to help doctors form an accurate diagnosis.
In the meantime, check out these five health conditions that can mimic RA.
Lupus
According to the Lupus Foundation of America, lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that can strike any part of the body, including the skin, joints and even organs.
The scary thing is that lupus can sometimes look like rheumatoid arthritis. "The arthritis of lupus can mimic very closely that of rheumatoid arthritis…but in contrast to RA, SLE does not cause an erosive, deforming arthritis, and joint symptoms tend to be milder,” Natalie E. Azar, M.D., assistant clinical professor of medicine and rheumatology at the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, tells Everyday Health.
Psoriatic Arthritis
According to Health Central, psoriatic arthritis can be mistaken for RA because of its similar symptoms, like pain, swelling and joint stiffness. That said, there are ways to tell the difference.
The first is most people who have psoriatic arthritis (PA) develop psoriasis before PA. (In fact, Health Central says that this percentage is 85 percent.) Plus, those with PA experience asymmetric joint involvement and a lack of nodules.
Osteoarthritis
According to Health magazine, osteoarthritis and RA can often be confused. “Everybody says that arthritis is one word," Christopher Evans, D.Sc., Ph.D., of the Maurice Mueller Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School in Boston, tells Health. "But the conditions are quite different."
Health says that one general way to tell the difference can be age. Osteoarthritis is usually seen later in life, but RA usually develops between the ages of 30 and 60. If it strikes someone younger than 16, it’s called juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Plus, RA can exhibit symptoms not associated with osteoarthritis, like fever.
According to Health, RA and osteoarthritis are also seen in different places. Whereas RA is associated with small areas like wrists, osteoarthritis affects bigger areas like the hips. Further, osteoarthritis can affect just one side of the body, but RA usually affects both sides.