Arthrofibosis | International Arthrofibrosis Association (original) (raw)

“Arthrofibrosis literally means fibrosis of a joint and it can affect any joint."

“And it's essentially a wound healing response that doesn't stop when it should, so when healing is finished it should stop. But that wound healing response keeps going. It becomes pathological.”

“It's actually created by a special type of cell called myofibroblasts and these are normal cells that get transformed into this new kind of phenotype, and these create the internal scar tissue in the joint and they create adhesions and contractions.“

“Inflammation promotes fibrosis and then once it's going for too long, there’s always feedback effects that kick in between inflammation and fibrosis and it becomes self-perpetuating. So it becomes very, very difficult to resolve.”

“The impact of arthrofibrosis depends on which tissues are affected in the joint. Any of the tissues in the joint can be affected. So you can get fibrotic nerves, tendons, muscles, all of that.”

“They can be just sent away and told there's nothing wrong, or they might even be blamed for it, for non-compliance in physiotherapy, which is a common one.”

“I get a lot of people saying I feel gaslighted and traumatised by those kind of responses.”

“We also need society to be aware so that family understand, because quite often family don't understand and there's no obvious outward signs of what's wrong.”