2. Symptoms
Psoriatic arthritis combines the symptoms of skin and nail psoriasis with chronic inflammation of the joints, tendons and spine.
Joint and skin involvement may or may not be simultaneous. Most of the time, psoriasis precedes the inflammation of the joints and spine. In rare cases, the symptoms of both diseases occur at the same time. In 10% of patients, the joint or spinal symptoms appear before the skin involvement, which may be discrete and affect only the scalp or the buttocks.
No relationship has been established between the severity of psoriasis and the extent of joint or spinal involvement.
The symptoms of PA are not very specific and are very similar to those of other forms of chronic inflammatory rheumatism. When acute attacks (flares) are mild and widely spaced over time (several years between flares), psoriatic arthritis often goes undetected.
It is estimated that half of all patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis have never been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis.
