Doctors explained why everyone's joint pain is different

Osteoarthritis is a disease that causes damage to cartilage and surrounding tissues. This is the most common form of arthritis in the world, which affects more than 300 million people. In addition to functional limitations and disability, the disease provokes pain, which changes over time.

At first, people feel pain associated with with body weight load, for example, when jogging and climbing stairs. Later, it becomes more persistent and can flare up unpredictably. At the same time, patients with the same diagnosis often complain of different pain. Doctors found out why.

Researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Department of Public Health analyzed data from the Multicenter Osteoarthritis Pain Study of 2,794 older adults with or at risk for osteoarthritis of the knee. As a result, it was found that people with greater pain sensitivity are more likely to suffer from constant and unpredictable pain than from just intermittent pain. This mechanism, which is the basis of the nervous system, and is responsible for the differences in joint pain in people, reports Science Daily.

According to the scientists, their findings should form the basis for an individual approach to the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee joint. This would improve the current one-size-fits-all approach, where every patient starts with the same approach and then switches to another if the first option doesn't work. For example, if a patient has sensitization to pain, methods that can change these signaling pathways in the nervous system are useful.