Atreyee Poddar
Your joints are not supposed to sound like bubble wrap. A little creak after leg day is fine, but waking up feeling like the Tin Man before oil? Not okay. Arthritis does not just mean limping or having to depend on a cane. The subtle but persistent signals that we brush off as age, weather, or bad posture are early symptoms we shouldn’t ignore.
This isn’t the satisfying soreness after a new workout. It’s a dull, nagging joint pain that lingers for weeks. Our knees, fingers, hips, shoulders are the common affected spots. In osteoarthritis, i.e., the wear-and-tear kind, pain flares with movement and eases with rest. But in rheumatoid arthritis which is an autoimmune condition where the immune system mistakenly attacks the joint lining, pain can feel more constant and inflamed.
Everyone needs a minute in the morning. But if your joints feel stiff for more than 30 minutes after waking, that’s a classic early sign, especially of inflammatory arthritis like rheumatoid arthritis. The joint lining becomes inflamed overnight, and it takes time to 'thaw out.'
Puffiness around a joint without a clear injury is a red flag. The area may feel warm or slightly tender. Sometimes there’s mild redness. Inflammation is the body’s defence system, but when it turns chronic inside a joint, it damages cartilage and it's surrounding. Early swelling can be subtle, so compare both sides. If one knee looks like it’s hosting extra fluid and the other isn’t, that says a lot.
You can’t fully bend your knee. You struggle to grip a jar. Turning your neck feels limited. Healthy joints glide smoothly because cartilage acts like a shock-absorbing cushion. As cartilage breaks down or inflammation builds up, movement becomes restricted.
In autoimmune types of arthritis, the immune system becomes chronically active. That constant alert mode in our head drains a lot of our energy. Unexplained fatigue, mild fevers, or a general feeling of being unwell with joint symptoms are signs of inflammatory arthritis rather than just simple wear-and-tear.