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Reactive arthritis
Reactive arthritis Arthritis resulting from infection elsewhere in the body. i.e. there is no infection in the joint. The commonest type is HLA B27-related and may follow certain types of bowel or genitourinary infection.
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Arthritis
Inflammation of a joint, usually accompanied by pain, swelling, and stiffness, and resulting from infection, trauma, degenerative changes, metabolic disturbances, or other causes. Arthritis occurs in various forms, such as the arthritis associated with infections, osteoarthritis, or rheumatoid arthritis. Many forms of vasculitis can also be associated with arthritis.
Infection
Anything that invades the body and reproduces. Infections can be bacteria, protozoa, fungi, or viruses. Bacteria and fungi are one celled creatures that cause many infections including strep throat, bladder infections, and some lung infections. Fungi cause “athlete’s foot” and thrush, an infection in the mouth. Protozoa are small organisms with many cells that can cause infections in the guts or in the lungs. Most healthy people do not get protozoal infections, but people with suppressed immune systems can. Viruses are not really organisms; they are tiny particles that can live only inside another cell. They reproduce by taking over a cell and causing that cell to make more virus particles, rather than doing what the cell is supposed to do. Viruses cause most colds and flu cases.
Joint
Where the ends of two or more bones meet.
Bowel
Another word for the small and large intestines.
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Reaction formation
A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which a person adopts affects, ideas, and behaviors that are the opposites of impulses harbored either consciously or unconsciously. For example, excessive moral zeal may be a reaction to strong but repressed asocial impulses.
Reactive hypoglycemia
A fall in blood sugar which causes symptoms during the period following meals. Simply put, the body has trouble braking the secretion of insulin after a meal, resulting in the blood sugar dropping further than it should. Reactive hypoglycemia is different from spontaneous hypoglycemia, which is not assoicated with meal ingestion. Reactive hypoglycemia generally has a benign prognosis.
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Root canal
Common term for root canal therapy, also the interior space of the tooth root.
Root canal therapy
Process of removing pulp of a tooth and filling it with an inert material.
Root resection
Removal of a portion of diseased root structure, retaining the remaining natural tooth.
Rubber dam
Soft latex sheet used to establish isolation of one or more teeth from contamination by oral fluids and to keep materials from falling to the back of the throat.
Raynaud's phenomenon
Blanching of the extremities on exposure to cold. Usually followed by blue discolouration on rewarming.
Reactive arthritis
Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
See 'algodystrophy'.
Reiter's syndrome
Triad of arthritis, conjunctivitis and urethritis. A form of reactive arthritis. Other features of seronegative spondylarthropathy may be present.
Relapsing polychondritis
A rare autoimmune disorder in which there is inflammation of hyaline cartilage in joints, nose, pinna and airways. Scleritis may occur.
Rice bodies
Aggregates of cells, fibrin and debris found in synovial fluid from chronically inflamed joints.
Ritchie index
A scoring system for recording joint tenderness.
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