Temporal Arthritis
All You Need to Know about Temporal Arthritis
Temporal arthritis is also called giant cell arthritis. It is an illness that causes inflammation in your body's systems, and it generally affects people over fifty years of age. It usually starts in a slow way, with fatigue and malaise developing over a period of several weeks. It can also cause weight loss and low grade fever. Victims will also feel joint and muscle aches in their shoulders and hips, but their joints actually do not normally swell.
Major large arteries become inflamed, as part of the process of inflammation. In particular, the artery at the side of your head near your temple, or the temporal artery, is inflamed, hence the name. The temporal artery supplies blood to the top of the head as well as the jaw, so patients with temporal arthritis often experience scalp tenderness, headache and jaw soreness, especially after talking or chewing. The temporal artery also takes blood to the optic nerve, so blindness is possible, but thankfully does not occur often. Prednisone is the usual course of treatment, and it is effective against this disease.
The major worry with temporal arthritis is loss of vision, although if it is allowed to progress, it can affect other arteries in the body. The condition can potentially threaten your vision, but if you treat it
promptly, you can usually avoid permanent vision loss. The reason vision is threatened is due to the interruption of blood flow to the optic nerve by inflamed arteries. If you don't treat this disease, you can
lose your sight, due to the retina and optic nerve not receiving enough oxygen.
Physicians do not know what causes temporal arthritis, but they assume that it is partly affected by your body's immune responses. This disease is also known to be associated with polymyalgia rheumatica. It can also be accompanied by systemic lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Those systems are usually caused by inflammation.
This disorder may affect you by itself, or it may exist along with polymyalgia rheumatica, which causes stiffness and pain in the shoulder and pelvic muscles. The percentage of people who experience both disorders is about 25%.
Symptoms include:
Weight loss
Loss of appetite
A general ill feeling
Weakness & tiredness
Reduced vision or blindness in one or both eyes
Vision difficulties not as serious as blindness
Jaw pain after chewing or talking
Scalp sensitivity
Headache on one side or the back of the head
Fever
To test for temporal arthritis, your health care professional may palpate your scalp to check for tenderness, and he will often find that one temporal artery is thicker than the other. That artery may have a weaker pulse, or NO pulse. The goal in treating the disorder is to minimize the amount of tissue damage that is not reversible, due to loss of blood flow. The most common prescription treatment is prednisone, to reduce inflammation. You may also be told to take aspirin along with the steroids. Occasionally, medications are prescribed that suppress the immune system, as well.