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When it’s arthritis
For anyone whose joints hurt or who has been told they have arthritis, and the people beside them. This page passes on, by name, what the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) says: what arthritis is, the common types, how osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and gout each show up, how a doctor finds out which type it is, the kinds of treatment, what helps day to day, and who does what on a care team. It builds the questions to ask at a visit and prints a card. Take only what you need today.
Before anything else
- Find out which type it is. NIAMS says there are many different types of arthritis with different causes and treatments, and that it is important for your doctor to diagnose the type you have so that you can get the proper treatment.
- Early matters for rheumatoid arthritis. NIAMS says it may start causing joint damage during the first year or two, and that once joint damage occurs it generally cannot be reversed, so early diagnosis and treatment are very important.
- The pages we read list no emergency signs. That is not a promise that there are none. In an emergency, call 911.
- Thinking about ending your life? Call or text 988, at any hour.
More help
- Keeping track: Symptom diary and My medicines.
- Before a visit: Get ready for your appointment.
- Pain that stays: When pain doesn’t go away.
- Days with little energy: Energy budget and One step at a time.
- At work: Ask for what helps you work.
- Getting older: Help as you get older and Menopause, and the years around it.
- How you feel: When the heaviness won’t lift and When the worry won’t switch off.
- No insurance, or a bill you can’t pay: When you need a doctor and can’t pay and When a medical bill is too much.
- All our free tools.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor, nurse, pharmacist or rheumatologist has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 7, 2026 on one government website: the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (niams.nih.gov), on its Arthritis page (last reviewed November 2022), its two Osteoarthritis pages (September 2023), its two Rheumatoid Arthritis pages (November 2022) and its two Gout pages (December 2023), each in English and in Spanish. The page says when it is passing on NIAMS, and what is marked “ours” is our own. NIAMS’s Spanish pages are shorter versions of the English ones, so our Spanish page says where a fact comes from the English page. What we left out or did not read: amounts of any medicine; brand names; statistics; what anything costs or what insurance, Medicaid or Medicare pays; pregnancy; arthritis in children; the pages on psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, reactive arthritis and juvenile arthritis (each gets the one sentence from NIAMS’s overview); how the disease works inside the joint; NIAMS’s research pages; and any list of signs that mean go to an emergency room, because the pages we read give none. We called no number. It saves nothing and loads no tracking.