If you are among the one percent of people in the country who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, you will know just how debilitating the disease can be.
The condition is caused when your immune system attacks your own body, in particular the joints, causing them to become inflamed.
It is unknown why the immune system attacks the body when there is no threat, but the disease usually starts between the ages of 30 and 50 and is three times as likely to affect women as men.
Stiffness occurs in the joints due to the swelling of the soft tissue around the fluid in a joint, known as the synovial membrane, the layer of membrane around the tendon which allows it to move, known as the tendon sheaths, and the bags of fluid that prevent friction between muscles and tendons, known as bursae,
When joints become warm and there is increased blood flow to the area, the synovial membrane produces more fluid causing the swelling and stretching of the ligaments and swollen and painful joints.
In most people the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis develop over several months, but in a fifth of sufferers the arthritis develops more rapidly.
One in 20 people each episode of inflammation results in severe damage to the joints, but most people have little or no damage. Treating inflammation as soon as it starts is important because the damage that can be caused is irreversible.
While the main risk that you will get rheumatoid arthritis comes from one group of genes, a number of genes are involved to different extents depending on the sufferer.
There is a condition that mirrors and is often mistaken for rheumatoid arthritis, known as palindromic rheumatism.
Sufferers experience pain and stiffness that gets worse during flare-ups that last more than 45 minutes and often have flu-like symptoms, become tired, irritable or depressed.
The condition is thought to be linked to rheumatoid arthritis and as many as half of sufferers go on to develop rheumatoid arthritis.
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