Reactive Arthritis
The new, politically correct name for it is Reactive Arthritis, since our good Dr. Reiter ended up being a Nazi war criminal.
image by: Rishi Kumar, MD
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Me and the Man And Chickens…
It was soon determined that the severe food poisoning that had nearly cost me my life had left me with a condition known as Reiter’s Syndrome. Knowing (and proving) that it wasn’t all in my head was, of course, an immense relief, and I was filled with hope that soon my days of physical and mental pain were nearly over.
Having Reiter’s Syndrome means my immune system has been damaged, and if I get something as simple as a splinter in my thumb, my body goes into overdrive to attack it, and will also attack anything in it’s way, specifically all of my joints, my eyes, and my urinary system. The new, politically correct name for it is Reactive Arthritis, since our good Dr. Reiter ended…
Resources
Modern medical terms are still named after Nazi doctors. Can we change it?
In 1977, a group of doctors began a campaign to change the name of an inflammatory arthritis after discovering it was named after a Nazi doctor who planned and performed gruesome forced human experimentation that killed thousands. In one of these experiments, for example, Hans Conrad Julius Reiter inoculated Buchenwald concentration camp inmates with the microbe causing typhus, resulting in the deaths of over 250 people. The inflammatory arthritis then known as “Reiter’s syndrome,” the group of doctors suggested, should change its name to “reactive arthritis.”
My Experience of Reactive Arthritis
I haven’t written this post to illicit sympathy, but more for others should they go through the same thing. At the time I had no idea what was happening to my body and had never heard of reactive arthritis. On the bad days I would Google to see if I could find something other people had written about it, but only came across medical websites and jargon.
Reactive Spondylitis and Bacterial Infection
Wear and tear is not the only cause of back pain and arthritis, some is due to bacterial infection, and reactive spondylitis, or Reiter’s syndrome, is one example of this. Reactive arthritis symptoms can be similar to spinal stenosis symptoms, rheumatoid arthritis, and even osteoarthritis joint pain in some patients...
Reiter’s Syndrome/ Reactive arthritis.
Reiter’s Syndrome and Reactive Arthritis are often considered to be the same disease. Reiter’s 3 classic symptoms are arthritis, urinary tract infection and inflamed eyes although Reactive Arthritis can result from a gastro-intestinal illness or food poisoning too.
There is a cure for arthritis – Reactive Arthritis (Reiter’s Syndrome)
Dr. Ettinger helped me build a program to stop what was causing my Reactive Arthritis (Reiter’s Syndrome) from attacking and destroying my body, and helped me repair my immune system to such a high degree that my body could actually heal itself. Note: My Reactive Arthritis was so bad that it was eating away the joints of my toes and causing permanent deformity. Luckily, I am constantly healing and rebuilding my bones back to normal.
Me and the Man And Chickens…
The new, politically correct name for it is Reactive Arthritis, since our good Dr. Reiter ended up being a Nazi war criminal. Informally, it’s known as the “Can’t pee, can’t see, can’t climb a tree” syndrome. On any given day, one of the three symptoms keeps me company, but every once in awhile, they all strike at once.
Arthritis .org
Reactive arthritis is an inflammatory type of arthritis which affects the joints, and may affect the eyes, skin and urinary tract (bladder, vagina, urethra).
FP Notebook
Extensive resource.
NORD
Reactive arthritis is a general term for a form of joint inflammation (arthritis) that develops as a "reaction" to an infection in another area of the body (i.e., outside of the joints).
Patient
Reactive arthritis is a form of seronegative spondyloarthritis clinically associated with inflammatory back pain, additive or migratory oligoarthritis and extra-articular symptoms that typically follow a gastrointestinal or urogenital infection by a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 3-6 weeks.
Your.MD
Reactive arthritis develops after an infection, typically after a sexually transmitted infection (STI) such as chlamydia, or an infection of the digestive system. For reasons that are still unclear, two to four weeks after the infection has passed the immune system (the body's defence against infection) appears to malfunction and starts attacking healthy tissue, causing it to become inflamed.
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