• Osteoarthritis: This chronic condition is the most common arthritis causing cartilage breakdown. Bones meeting at joints rub against each other causing stiffness, pain, and loss of movement.
   
• Rheumatoid arthritis: Rheumatoid arthritis is when your immune system attacks joints. This is a chronic inflammatory disease causing pain, swelling, inflammation, and loss of function. Risk factors include any of the following: age, sex, genetics, smoking, a woman who has never given birth, and obesity.
   
• Gout: This form of arthritis is when uric acid builds up in the bloodstream, forming needle-shaped crystals that lodge in tissues like joints. Symptoms include severe pain and swelling in the big toe. Overtime lumps of uric acid, called tophi, develop around the ankles.
   
• Calcium Pyrophosphate Dihydrate Crystal Deposition Disease: This is when calcium crystals form in joints causing pain, stiffness, tenderness, redness, warmth, and swelling in knees, most commonly, and ankles.
   
• Reactive arthritis: Infection in another part of your body triggers reactive arthritis. Infection of the genital, urinary, or gastrointestinal system may affect knees, ankles, and other joints.
   
• Lupus: This chronic autoimmune disease attacks joints, skin, heart, lungs, and kidneys. Symptoms include ankle swelling and sensitivity to cold.

Other Reason for Ankle Pain

There are other reasons you may suffer from ankle pain, like a sprain while walking, running or an accident. Make sure you contact your Naperville foot doctor if you have any of the symptoms mentioned above or if your ankle is slowing you down after an incident.

Need to contact a foot doctor?

Dr. Nancy Jagodzinski of Ankle & Foot Center of Fox Valley in Naperville, IL, can help diagnose and treat ankle problems. If you would like to contact her, call 630-778-7670 today!