Women’s Health Month Series: Rheumatology Reminders

For the fourth and last installment of our Women’s Health Month website sequence, we spoke with Lei Wang, MD, a rheumatologist with Dignity Overall health Woodland Clinic. Dr. Wang shares assistance on prevalent rheumatic health conditions — which are situations that affect joints, tendons, ligaments, bones, and muscle tissue.

What are some rheumatic ailments girls must be conscious of as they age?

Dr. Wang: There are various widespread rheumatic disorders that can have an effect on folks as they age, together with polymyalgia rheumatica, big cell arteritis, osteoarthritis, crystal arthritis and osteoporosis. Amid these problems, the pursuing are a lot more popular in females, in particular right after they enter menopause, all-around age 55:

• Osteoarthritis is hurt to the cartilage at the conclusion of our bones, causing the bones within the joint to rub together and develop suffering, swelling or decline of motion.
• Osteoporosis is a loss of bone mass or density, producing bones to develop into brittle and increasing the danger for bone breakage.

What preventative actions can ladies choose to decrease their danger of these ailments?

Dr. Wang: Having calcium and vitamin D supplements, both which are necessary nutrition for bone wellbeing. Even ladies in their early teens need to get ample calcium in their food plan to avert osteoporosis afterwards in lifestyle.

Healthful life-style routines can aid lower the danger of building rheumatic disorders, as nicely as add to in general excellent health which includes:

• Maintaining a healthier body weight
• Incorporating workout into everyday activity (cardio exercising, fat-bearing and resistance routines)
• Quitting or keeping away from smoking cigarettes cigarettes
• Restricting liquor ingestion
• Eradicating prospective potential risks from the dwelling to prevent falls or personal injury

Often, osteoporosis indicators are not recognizable, earning screening particularly essential as we age. The faster osteoporosis is detected, the sooner way of living improvements can be implemented that can tremendously reduce the chance of fractures. Gals who are postmenopausal and women in excess of 65 years aged need to be screened for osteoporosis yearly. If you recognize a decline of height, stooped posture, very low again agony, or an simply broken bone, you ought to speak to your doctor about screening.

Make contact with your principal care medical professional or rheumatologist to examine and schedule yearly screenings, or talk to our “Discover a Health practitioner” instrument to locate a Dignity Well being health care provider near you.