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Featured Discussion-Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis, judging by the number of responses to our OA survey that is true around here too. But our survey showed our members to be a bit younger than the average age for OA. According to the American College of Rheumatology it most often affects middle-aged and older people. However the average age of people that responded to our survey was 35-45. We have a bunch of youngsters with OA. We'll look into the contributing factors to the development of OA in younger people.

A number of you wanted to learn more about joint replacements, but replacements aren't specific to OA. Since many other forms of arthritis can lead to joint replacements we'll be covering those in a separate Featured Discussion next month. Pain medications were mentioned frequently too. Please check out the Featured Discussion Archive and our Medication Index for information on medications.

Other things you wanted to learn about included the new viscosupplementation treatments, the use of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate, surgical options, and you wanted to know how others dealt with their OA. We're going to discuss the first 3 but we need your help with the last one. We'd like to finish out our discussion with a number of stories from people with OA. So all of you that responded that you would be willing to share your experiences please head over to Member Stories and submit yours this week! 

Please join us tonight in our chatroom at 9pm Eastern time for a question and answer session with rheumatologist Barry Waters. Dr. Waters will answer all of our questions about OA and any other type of arthritis. Dr. Waters always packs the house, so get there early for a good seat!

As with every Featured Discussion we will add something new every day. If you have OA or love someone that does, check back everyday so you won't miss a thing.

Tina J. Underwood
Page last updated on April 23, 2000