What happens if rheumatism becomes serious

Rheumatism is a disease with a relatively high incidence rate. When it occurs, it has a relatively large impact on the patient's health. If rheumatic disease is not treated in time and worsens, it may even cause more serious diseases such as kidney disease, pneumonia, eye disease, urinary tract infection, infectious diseases, and rheumatic heart disease. In severe cases, it may even lead to sudden death of the patient, posing a threat to the patient's life safety.

1. Kidney disease

Renal dysfunction in rheumatoid arthritis is often related to long-term use of antirheumatic drugs and analgesics. After stopping the medication, the condition will gradually improve. Long-term use of analgesics may also cause interstitial nephritis, which progresses slowly but can lead to renal failure. Complications of rheumatoid arthritis may cause renal amyloid degeneration, which can only be prevented by controlling the development of rheumatism.

2. Pneumonia

Due to decreased immunity and bacterial infection, patients often suffer from pneumonia. This is also one of the complications of rheumatoid arthritis.

3. Eye diseases

Rheumatoid arthritis can cause dryness and discomfort of the cornea and conjunctiva. A small number of patients may develop scleritis and iritis, which often occur 2 to 3 mm away from the edge of the cornea. It is more common in patients with more severe rheumatic activity, and may even form nodules or necrosis. This can lead to complications of rheumatoid arthritis.

4. Urinary tract infection

This is also one of the complications of rheumatoid arthritis. If patients with rheumatoid arthritis do not pay attention to their daily lives or catch a cold, they are prone to urinary tract infections.

5. Infectious diseases

Because patients have suffered from the disease for too long and their immune function has declined, when certain infectious diseases are prevalent in society, people with rheumatoid arthritis complications are more susceptible to infection than normal people.

6. Rheumatic heart disease

Rheumatic heart disease, also known as rheumatic heart disease, refers to heart valve disease caused by rheumatic fever activity affecting the heart valves. It manifests as stenosis and/or insufficiency of one or more valves in the mitral valve, tricuspid valve, and aortic valve. Clinically, stenosis or insufficiency often exist at the same time, but one of them is usually predominant. There are often no obvious symptoms in the early stages of the disease, but in the later stages, there are manifestations of heart decompensation such as palpitations, shortness of breath, fatigue, cough, lower limb edema, and coughing up pink foamy sputum.