Polyarthritis is any type of arthritis that involves five or more joints simultaneously. It can be associated with autoimmune conditions; it may be experienced at any age and is not sex specific.
Causes
Polyarthritis may be caused by an
Auto-immune such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and lupus erythematosus, or other inflammatory
rheumatology, like crystal arthropathies. It can also be caused by
cancer or various medications.
If polyarthritis symptoms last less than six weeks, it is defined as acute polyarthritis: longer than six weeks indicates chronic polyarthritis.
Another cause of polyarthritis is infection, which may be viral disease or bacterial.
Viral polyarthritis
Viruses that cause polyarthritis include
, such as
Chikungunya,
Sindbis virus and Ross River virus.
Bacterial polyarthritis
Arthritis caused by bacterial infection of the joint is termed
septic arthritis and does not commonly affect multiple joints. It may notably be caused by
gonococcus. Bacteria can also cause polyarthritis not by directly infecting the joints; instead, infection located elsewhere in the body can cause
immune reaction, which becomes the direct cause of the inflammation of joints. This form or arthritis is called reactive and often coexists with
urethritis, and
conjuctivitis in the eye.
See also
