Inflammatory Joint Disease in Ayurvedic Medicine

Amavata is a disease of chronic joint and body pain, accompanied by a swelling of some or all of the synovial joints. These symptoms are typically accompanied by immobility, a loss of taste, thirst, indigestion, a lack of enthusiasm, a feeling of heaviness, and fever. If the condition is allowed to progress the pains may begin to migrate from place to place, with an intense stinging and/or burning sensation. There may be scanty, frequent urination, and sleep may become disturbed. The digestion will continue to worsen, with bowel irritability and spasm, constipation, nausea, and vomiting.  Amavata displays many features in common with a collection of signs and symptoms that are typically diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The cause of RA is still the subject of some contention among pathologists, but most theories to date either advocate an autoimmune mechanism or an infectious agent. In conventional medicine RA is typically treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), corticosteroids, immunosuppressive drugs Despite the obvious similarities between it and RA, amavata is nonetheless very different. It is a distinct etiological and pathological model, based on the interaction and influence of the three doshas, vis. Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Thus, the treatment regimen for amavata has entirely different objectives than those of RA, and very likely different results. Amavata may also include the features of other conditions, from the more pedestrian diagnoses such as arthritis, to more ‘exotic’ conditions such as ankylosing spondylitis.