Dr. Paul Waytz
speaker
98 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2024
last heard Jun 2024
Dr. Paul Waytz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Exactly, exactly. Well, first of all, the term itis means inflammation. So you could have pharyngitis, inflammation of the throat, and all sorts of tendonitis, inflammation of a tendon. So arthritis technically means inflammation of a joint, which is a very generic term.
For rheumatologists and physicians in general and healthcare practitioners, the term rheumatic disease is more encompassing because there are over 100 different kinds of arthritis or 100 different kinds of diseases. rheumatic disease, including some that have nothing to do with the joints. They may be inflammation of blood vessels or muscles or involve other things going on with the body.
Like I said, arthritis is a very generic term. There's many, many rheumatic diseases, some of which are obscure. We're probably recognizing new rheumatic diseases every few years. So like I say, at a cocktail party, we'll say arthritis between the several of us, we'll say rheumatic disease.
Yeah, it's a great question. So a number of itises, like pharyngitis or carditis, could be caused by an infection like strep. A strep throat is truly an inflammation of the throat. Some viruses can cause inflammation of the heart and this type of thing. However, inflammation is a complicated process and there's many kinds of inflammation. So the root of most rheumatic diseases is inflammation.
And I want to come back to something related to that in a minute. And the itis or the inflammation is often caused by a disturbance of our immune system. So our immune system protects us from foreign agents, external agents, and really does an amazing job in terms of taking care of us.
But sometimes that immune system goes haywire, it goes awry and we start producing inflammatory problems as a basic term against our own organs and tissues.
Um, and my aside here is that the most common type of arthritis is osteoarthritis or wear and tear arthritis, um, which is more of a degenerative process, um, where something is, it goes wrong with the cartilage of our joints, the spacer between the two bony surfaces and, um, There's wear and tear. You lose the normal joint function and joint protection and inflammation can occur.
So we have osteoarthritis, but it's often a secondary process to bone rubbing on bone or a fragment floating around a joint or something like that. So the most common kind of arthritis is kind of and it's becoming clear now that there's probably some immune issues related to it. is more wear and tear and related to other factors like overuse or being overweight and this type of thing.
But the most damaging kinds of arthritis, like rheumatoid, is a problem with autoimmunity.
Yeah, so they truly don't deal so much with the inflammation per se, but the result of the inflammation. Inflammation that has damaged the joint. So once that joint becomes, it's not functioning as well, there's bone on bone or bone near bone, and you get the pain from that because you lose the cartilage spacer. So they're dealing with more of a mechanical issue.
where a mechanical problem, that's a result of the inflammatory process. And, you know, we try, you know, rheumatologists say we like to keep people away from orthopedists as much as possible because that means, oh, well, it's end stage in that joint or something is going on. We need their help to kind of manage the pain by hand. doing a procedure or something like that.
Yeah.
We're trying to, that's, that's the, that's the goal. Although it's amazing. You know, people these days go to, they say, I have pain. I'm going to go see an orthopedist. And when in fact they have something that they should be seeing a rheumatologist first.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Well, certainly too much food. I got that one. I saw that one. But basically, it's a great subject. And a lot of people will say, there's no evidence that food affects different kinds of arthritis. And I think that's erroneous because everybody's different.
And if you have some inflammation, I don't think a food problem causes arthritis, but I think food, some people have sensitivities such that if they eat a certain thing, then that might flare their arthritis. And over the years, and there are numerous diets that people propose for, you know, helping arthritis and, and, you know, some of them, have no basis in science.
But if a person thinks that they're eliminating a certain food helps, I would be the last person to say, don't do that. I think there's certainly a placebo effect. And when I say placebo effect, I don't mean to diminish that. But I think that's a very important issue. But it's a very individual thing, Clarence.
And, you know, for some people, if they eat, say, tomatoes, their arthritis flares, and most people, it's not going to be a problem. So again, just like the immune system, it's very individual. Okay, thank you.
Yeah. You know, rheumatologists aren't as sexy as orthopedists. And it's that old surgical adage, a chance to cut is a chance to cure. So they say, well, I got my knee problem. You know, they'll scope me or they'll do a procedure and I'll be fine.
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