When you are trying to find out what kind of disease you are suffering, one of the first questions will be what are the symptoms of psoriatic arthritis? Once you know what you are dealing with, it makes it much easier for you to treat. As we mentioned previously there are quite a few different kinds of psoriatic arthritis and the symptoms do vary a little between them. You must find out which type of this disease that you actually have before you can figure out how to treat it. The first step to that is to know what symptoms of psoriatic arthritis you have.

In most people that contract this disease, they will find that they have the psoriasis for many more months and even years before they get the arthritis form of it. Psoriasis arthritis can affect the knees, ankles, and the feet most commonly, but usually only a few joints are affected at a time. Like other kinds of arthritis, the joints can become very swollen and painful, and quite hot and red. You may also find that you have a lot of joint stiffness as a result of the psoriatic arthritis. the sumptoms can be quite bad, depending on what form you have.In some cases symptoms of psoriatic arthritis can include many joints in the body being affected simultaneously. It can also cause inflammation of the spine, and cause a lot of stiffness int he surrounding structures. Sometimes the symptoms of psoriatic arthritis are the development of inflammation of the tendons, and around the cartilage. This may lead to such conditions as achilles tendinitis, which can be very painful and restricting.

Not only can psoriasis affect the joints around your body, but you may also find that it can affect some of your orgams. You can get inflammation in the coloured part of your eye, which is very painful and is easily aggravated. You may also get changes to acne and nails if you suffer from psoriatic arthritis, acne is much more common. The fact is that it depends greatly on which tye of the disease you have as to which symptoms you will occur, but these are just some of them that you should be looking out for.

Symmetric: This is the most common type of psoriatic arthritis. Symmetric psoriatic arthritis accounts for 50% of the cases and it will affect joint on both sides of the body at the same time. It is very simialr to rheumatoid arthritis and it can be very disabling, can cause a variety of degrees of destructuve disease in about 50% of the people that suffer from it.

Asymmetric: This affects around 35% of all people that suffer from the disease. Asymmetric psoriatic arthritis is pretty mild and will not occur in the same joints on either side of the body like some other forms. It will usually only affect 3 joints or less.

Arthritis mutilans: This is another form of psoriatic arthritis that will affect less than 5% of people with the disease. It is a very sever form of arthritis and is very destructive. It will mostly affect the small joints such as the fingers and toes, very close to the nail, however there has also been a lot fo reported back pain in association with arthritis mutilans.

Spondylitis: This is another form of psoriatic arthritis that affects the spinal column. It can cause a lot of imflammation and stiffness in the spinal vertebrae, the lower back, the sacroiliac region, and can make movement very difficult for people that suffer from it. It can attack the connective tissue like the ligaments and tendons and will cause other arthritic diseases in the joints of the arms, lets, hips and feet.

Distal Interphalangeal Predominant (DIP): This type of psoriatic arthritis pain is found in around 5 % of patients and it is also characterised by inflammation and stiffness in the joints nearest to the toenail.It can very often be confused with osteoarthritis.

As you can see there are quite a few forms of psoriatic arthritis, and in order to find a psoriatic arthritis diagnosis it is important that you are able to distinguish between which disease you suffer from, in order to be able to correctly treat them and find a psoriatic arthritis cure for you.