Category: Blog

Arthritis is primarily a condition of the elderly. However, you can reduce your risk of developing this condition later in life. In this article, you will know more about arthritis, its causes, and prevention, especially at early ages.

Arthritis is a joint disorder that causes pain and irritations, making it difficult to move the joints. Arthritis has different types and is very common in older people. However, in some cases, younger people do have arthritis as well.

Arthritis also causes degeneration of the joint. It affects the feet, hips, knees, hands, and lower back. It is a prevalent disease that affects millions of adults and thousands of children yearly.

What Are The Different Types Of Arthritis?

1. Gout: This is a type of arthritis that can occur at any age. It causes severe pain, redness, and swelling in the affected joints. It affects the toe primarily. It can be caused by accumulated urate crystals (which are caused by too much uric acid in the blood) in the joints, leading to irritation and severe pain.
2. Juvenile Arthritis: This is the most popular type of arthritis that affects children under 16. The symptoms include intense pain, stiffness, and swelling of the joints. Juvenile arthritis might affect some children for many years, while some might experience it for a few months. The damages of juvenile arthritis can be severe, leading to growth issues, eye irritations, and joint deterioration.
3. Osteoarthritis: Millions of people worldwide suffer from this type of arthritis yearly. It happens when there is wear and tear of the protective cartilage that pads the ends of the bones. It is most common in the hand, knee, spine, and hip joints.
4. Psoriatic Arthritis: This type of arthritis is common among psoriasis people. Psoriasis is a disease that causes the skin to develop red patches. It is an autoimmune disorder that leads to skin inflammation.
5. Ankylosing Spondylitis: This type of arthritis causes stiffness in some of the bones in the spine over time and is more common in men than women. It could also lead to a hunched posture. In cases where the ribs have gotten affected, the individual might be unable to breathe correctly.

Causes Of Arthritis

There are various causes for each type of arthritis. For instance, juvenile arthritis happens when the body’s immune system attacks tissue and cells. Researchers are unsure why this happens, but environmental and genetic factors also contribute to this type of arthritis. You might develop arthritis if you:

1. Perform activities that put your joints under extreme and persistent stress
2. Have a family background and history of arthritis
3. Are suffering from a particular autoimmune infection or disease

Some risk factors could increase your chances of developing arthritis, such as age (older people), lifestyle choices, e.g. (smoking), weight, e.g. (obesity), gender (most women suffer from some types of arthritis than men). Search for primary care physicians near you if you have a family history of arthritis.

How To Prevent Arthritis

Although some arthritis might not be very preventable, you could lower your risks of developing arthritis through the following:

1. By keeping fit through exercises
2. By staying away from tobacco and cigarettes
3. By protecting your joints from injuries during sports or other physical activities
4. By staying committed to a healthy diet.

Treatment of Arthritis

Although there is no cure for arthritis, you can manage it with various treatment methods.

Depending on the situation, your health care provider might recommend specific treatment methods to help prevent more damages and manage the disease. You can get arthritis treatment in Germantown, MD.

1. Therapy: Your health care provider might recommend some exercises that can enhance your movements. These exercises would help strengthen the muscles that support your joints.
2. Medication: Some medications can treat arthritis. Based on the type of arthritis, your doctor might recommend NSAIDs, steroids, and counterirritants to reduce joint irritation and aid movements.
3. Surgery: If your doctor has considered other types of treatment and seen that they are not working effectively enough, surgery might be the next step. The various types of surgery for arthritis include joint repair, joint fusion, and joint replacement. You can get arthritis surgery near you.

Visit Germantown Primary Healthcare for more information regarding arthritis. You will meet Dr. Lakhvinder Wadhwa to give you preventive tips and treatments if you have already developed arthritis. We are here to provide you with the support you need.

A common condition affecting many people is high blood pressure (hypertension), when the long-term force of blood against your artery walls remains sufficiently high to cause health problems like heart disease eventually. The blood pressure determination occurs by the quantity of blood your heart pumps and the resistance it encounters to the blood flow from your arteries. If you have narrowed arteries and your heart pumps sufficient blood, you become a victim of high blood pressure.

When you have high blood pressure, also called hypertension, the force of blood pushing through your vessels remains too high consistently. This article looks at the basics of hypertension, including its causes and treatment.

What Precisely Is High Blood Pressure?

Narrow blood vessels also called arteries, cause resistance to blood flow. The narrow your arteries, the more resistant they are and the higher they push your blood pressure. Over time your high blood pressure causes health issues, including heart disease. High blood pressure or hypertension is a common issue, and most Americans deal with this problem.

Generally, hypertension doesn’t develop overnight and happens over several years. As a result, you may not have any symptoms of high blood pressure, but the condition continues to damage your blood vessels and organs like your heart, brain, eyes, and kidneys.

Detecting blood pressure early is essential, and getting regular readings can help you and your doctor observes changes. If your blood pressure is elevated, your doctor might recommend checking your blood pressure every few weeks to determine the numbers remain elevated or return to normal. Doctors also recommend prescription medications and healthy lifestyle changes to contain elevated high blood pressure. However, if your condition doesn’t receive any treatment, you could be heading towards health issues like heart attacks and strokes.

Understanding High Blood Pressure Readings

Two numbers are associated with the pressure readings, with the systolic pressure being on the top indicating stress in the arteries when your heart is pumping blood out. The bottom number is diastolic pressure indicating the tension in your arteries between the beating of your heart.

There are five types of high blood pressure readings for adults. They are healthy, elevated, stage I hypertension, stage II hypertension, and hypertensive crisis. Blood pressure readings are taken with a pressure cuff. It is essential to have a correctly fitting cuff to obtain accurate readings because ill-fitting deliver inaccurate results. In addition, children and teenagers have different blood pressure readings. Therefore if you need to monitor your child’s blood pressure, enquire about the healthy ranges for blood pressure with your child’s doctor.

Causes of High Blood Pressure

There are two types of high blood pressure affecting adults.

Primary Hypertension (Essential)

Identifiable causes of high blood pressure haven’t been discovered for adults. Primary high blood pressure, also called hypertension, develops gradually over several years.

Secondary Hypertension

Some people have underlying conditions leading to high blood pressure. Secondary hypertension appears suddenly to cause higher pressure than primary hypertension. You can develop secondary hypertension due to various conditions like obstructive sleep apnea, adrenal gland tumors, thyroid issues, kidney disease, congenital issues, and illegal drugs.

Treatment Available for High Blood Pressure

Different factors allow the doctor providing high blood pressure treatment in Germantown to determine the best suited happy for you depending on the type of hypertension you have and the causes identified.

If you have primary hypertension, you receive help by changing your lifestyle to reduce your high blood pressure. You may obtain a medication prescription if lifestyle changes aren’t sufficient or ineffective.

If you have secondary hypertension, an underlying problem is causing the issue. In such cases, your treatment will focus on treating the underlying causes. For example, if your secondary hypertension results from medications for the underlying problem, Dr. Lakhvinder Wadhwa recommends other medicines that don’t have side effects.

Hypertension is persistent despite treatment provided for its underlying cause. In such cases, your doctor works with you to develop lifestyle changes and prescribes medications to reduce your high blood pressure. Treatment plans for hypertension are evolving, and if a drug proved effective for you initially, it might become less effective over time. Therefore your doctor continues working with you to refine your treatment.

You can also try lifestyle tips and home remedies to lower your risk of hypertension. However, it helps if you remain in touch with your doctor at Germantown Primary HealthCare to stay in optimal shape and control your high blood pressure.

Physical Examination: What’s the Purpose and Procedure?

What Tests Expect during the Physical Examination

Are you aware getting sufficient sleep is scientifically proven as improving every area of our lives, including increasing productivity and cognitive function? After a good night’s sleep, you feel more energetic when playing with your kids and have an overall happier and calmer mood all day.

Find it challenging to believe us? A comprehensive study conducted in Finland in 2007 revealed sleep-deprived people had reduced reaction time coupled with the inability to pay attention. The participants also had challenges with both short-term and long-term memory and critical thinking because they were managing with just five hours of sleep.

How Much Sleep Is Essential Every Night?

Seven to Nine hours of sleep for young adults and adults is recommended by the National sleep foundation. At the same time, the foundation recommends seven to eight hours of sleep every night for seniors. To understand whether you are on the longer or shorter end of the spectrum, you can see how long you sleep without an alarm. For example, if you wake up after seven hours, the number is adequate for you on most occasions.

How To Determine Whether You Are Getting Quality Sleep?

Trying to determine whether you are getting quality sleep is at best challenging and difficult to manage. However, you can either do an audit of your sleep hygiene or contact Germantown’s primary care physicians for help. Obtaining professional service to determine whether you are getting sufficient quality sleep gives you a professional assessment of your condition. In addition, it helps decide whether or not you are affected by conditions like insomnia, teeth grinding, snoring, narcolepsy, et cetera.

The Germantown physicians create a sleep care plan specifically for you by diagnosing and treating all sleep disorders in adults. When you contact this facility, you are accessing care from board-certified sleep specialists accredited by the American Academy of sleep medicine. The primary healthcare facility uses state-of-the-art technology along with a team of medical specialists, psychologists, and registered sleep medicine specialists, devoting their careers to sleep study and treatment of sleep disorders.

When Must You Seek a Sleep Care Plan from the Specialists?

If you experience an occasional night of interrupted sleep because of stress or other causes, the condition is normal and occurs with everyone. However, if you are persistently struggling to achieve quality sleep for over 30 days, you must consider the problem as severe and seek treatment for the condition as soon as possible.

Do not assume a physical exam or a discussion with the professionals at the facility is all that is required to overcome the problem you experience. You also have to undergo various tests with sleep care products to identify the reasons for your restlessness and the lack of quality sleep. You are either required to undergo a polysomnography test in a sleep clinic or a home sleep apnea test (HSAT) to determine whether sleep apnea is the cause of your restlessness.

The Treatment for Sleep Care

Dr. Lakhvinder Wadhwa offers a comprehensive sleep care program for adults, including the gold standard CPAP therapy, sleep tips, sleep studies, et cetera to ensure the disorder affecting you is effectively treated.

The experienced team of professionals from primary care physician Germantown, MD, will work with you to analyze your sleeping patterns by examining them to uncover the underlying cause and develop a personalized treatment plan specifically suited to your condition.

Before determining a practical course of action, the professionals initially consult with you and perform sleep study tests at an observational sleep center. The studies are essential to determine the underlying causes of your condition and develop the most effective treatment to relieve you from the problem affecting you.

Sleep disorders are familiar in the United States, with nearly 33 percent of Americans reporting they have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. The lack of sleep doesn’t just affect the overall quality of life of the affected individual but also makes it challenging for them to perform everyday activities like going to work or school, operating machinery on motor vehicles because it makes them susceptible to accidents.

The lack of sleep also affects the overall health of people by making them susceptible to various health disorders such as hypertension, strokes, heart disease, cardiovascular issues, and others. Therefore, sleep disorders are better not ignored as a minor issue. Instead, they can assume significant proportions unless identified and treated in time by obtaining a sleep care plan from the specialists.