It is a timeworn sign of old age and frailty.
Yet arthritis often (1) ______ the young.
(1) ______ This disease of the
body also has a (2) ______ impact on the mind.
(2) ______ "got very (3) ______. I couldn’t
sleep.
(3)
______ When pain is (4) ______ like that, it changes your
personality.
(4)______ And it affected everyone around me," says Nora
Baldner, who had arthritis in both hips. "I’d pour (5) ______ milk on my
kids’ cereal because I didn’t want to walk to the back of the supermarket where
the real milk was." (5) ______ Joint problems are now hurting
and crippling 43 million Americans, and they’re more (6) ______ than cancer or
diabetes.
(6) ______ The most
common form, osteoarthritis, affects about 21 million. Rheumatoid arthritis,
another common type, hits slightly more than 2 million. (There are 95 or so
other forms, often affecting fewer people.) And the numbers are
going up (7) ______.
(7) ______ By 2025, the total is expected to top (8)
______ million,
(8) ______ as an obese population pounds
more heavily on its joints and an active generation of baby (9). ______ grinds
them down.
(9) ______
What’s worse, these people will be fighting the disease without medicines
that had become staples of treatment: The drugs Vioxx and Bextra have just
been yanked off the market because they appear to (10) ______ the risk of heart
disease,
(10) ______ and that same shadow of fear has been cast over
remaining drugs like Celebrex and even ibuprofen-- a medicine that had
already worded doctors because heavy use can cause bleeding in the
stomach.