The first step in diagnosing arthritis is a thorough physical examination. The Restore Health team assesses your range of motion in your affected joints, their stability, and their strength. After the physical exam, they often use blood tests and imaging tests to determine which type of arthritis you have and assess the extent of the damage.

If you have some joint damage that isn’t significant enough to show up on an X-ray image yet, the team might use a bone scan to better understand the extent of the damage. In order to perform a bone scan, they inject you with a small dose of a radioactive substance. Once in your system, it builds up in areas of damage so that it’s visible on the bone scan imaging test.