Psoriatic arthritis is an autoimmune disease. In this disease, the immune system makes the mistake of not recognizing some of the joints of the body as part of the body. It thinks they are microbes and starts to attack them so those joints get inflamed. Those joints can include the hand and feet joints, elbows, knees or maybe joints of the spine sometimes. Symptoms of inflammation can be pain and swelling of the involved joints.

The word "psoriasis" in medicine is commonly related to a disease of the skin called "skin psoriasis". However psoriasis in medicine is actually related to that autoimmune skin disease "skin psoriasis" and also the autoimmune joint disease called "psoriatic arthritis".

Some patients will get the skin disease only. Some patients will get the skin and the joint disease together and some patients will get the joint disease only "psoriatic arthritis" without any skin affection.

Sorting out psoriatic arthritis from other types of autoimmune arthritis like rheumatoid arthritis for example which is the most famous autoimmune arthritic disorder is done by listening to the details of the symptoms of the patient and examining the patient and also by some imaging tests that we doctors will order. Treatment at this point in time is by prescribing a family of medications called DMARDs, disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs. This is a big family of medications and each autoimmune arthritis will require certain medications from this family but not all of them of course.

I will leave for you links for important posts and videos about autoimmune arthritis and its treatment.

Related links: 

What are autoimmune rheumatic diseases? 

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This post was prepared and published by  Dr. Hatem Eleishi. Dr. Hatem Eleishi is a professor of rheumatology at Cairo university (Egypt) and is especially dedicated to supporting arthritis patients with online educational videos and articles about arthritis causes and treatment. He also runs a rheumatology clinic in Cairo and a center for www.tabibakom.com/en that, in addition to providing online rheumatology consultations, also provides online medical consultations in several different medical specialties by expert consultants from Egypt, Canada and the United States.

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