Remedies for Osteoarthritis

Exercise is one of the best remedies for osteoarthritis. Unfortunately, getting active can seem impossible while you are in pain. If your doctor has recommended exercise as one of your remedies for osteoarthritis, they can provide you with a list of simple exercises that should be a little bit easier for you. There are several other options if you want to make exercise one of your remedies for osteoarthritis as well. Walking, swimming, or other physical activity might be something you want to try. The important thing is to find an exercise plan that you enjoy so you will want to do it.

Walking is one of the most common remedies for osteoarthritis, and for good reason. This simple exercise can benefit your entire body, from your knees, hips, and legs to even your eyes! Not many other remedies for osteoarthritis can help your whole body like that. Unlike many remedies for osteoarthritis, walking is also flexible-you can do it anywhere, anytime! If your neighborhood has a lot of hills that make walking difficult, you can walk in your house. To spice walking up a bit, you can listen to music while you do it or even take your dog with you.

Swimming is very popular among the remedies for osteoarthritis. If you can swim, try spending some leisure time in your pool. If you do not have a pool, you can visit the public pool in your area. The water will make you feel weightless and will give you a good workout without the strain. Instaflex advanced will give you pain relief, but they will not necessarily provide the other benefits that swimming will. You can improve your heart health as well as your muscle tone when you swim. Not many other remedies for osteoarthritis can provide that.

If you do not enjoy walking and cannot swim, never fear. There are other exercise remedies for osteoarthritis that you can use. The key is to just get moving. You can turn things as common as cleaning your house or sitting in a rocking chair into remedies for osteoarthritis. Cleaning your house requires movement, and will still increase your circulation. That is the same benefit that you get from regular exercising. Sitting in a rocking chair can increase the blood flow to your legs if you are actively rocking the chair as you sit. This is very light activity, making it one of the best remedies for osteoarthritis for people with limited mobility.

Cracking Knuckles Cause Arthritis: A Myth or A Fact

Fig: Cracking Knuckles
Image Source: Google Image

It is mostly seen that when people sit for long duration of time in a single place they are likely to knuckle their finger and back. For some people it is a pleasurable thing to do, because they think it gives some peace from the pain they have. For others they think it as annoying, dangerous and even say that it leads to arthritis.

Thus, is there any true fact behind Cracking Knuckles Cause Arthritis, or is just a myth.  Let's have a look.

This may be a myth or it may be fact because till now we don't have a scientific answer to this question. What we know from the past studies is that it doesn't have any connection to arthritis. Some small and mostly outdated data found in PubMed, Google Scholar and Web of Science also says that there are no evidence to prove that knuckle-cracking can lead to arthritis or can progress the diseases.

Fig: Normal and Arthritis hand
Image Source: Google Image

There is one study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM) about knuckle-cracking and arthritis also said that there is not a risk factor for osteoarthritis and knuckle-cracking. This study was analyzed on the basis of patient having history of with and without radiographic-evidence of OA.

Before this study, there were two more studies done on this subject some 20 years ago named Effect of habitual knuckle cracking on hand function and The Consequences of Habitual Knuckle Cracking. Both these studies were too proved nothing about the relation between the knuckle cracking and arthritis.

So many studies been done, still it fails to come on true fact to co-relate Cracking Knuckles and Arthritis. This absence of evidence makes this point more towards a myth. Still waiting for another study that can unfounded this.

Video Source: healthguru.com

Facts to know about joint pain

 

Your body is connected to each other and that connection is known as “joints”.  You never feel this connection until something happens in your joints. This something can be pain, swelling, inflammation when you get hurt by some accident or this can also be due to some other problems in joints such as arthritis.

 

If you suffer from these problems you are not alone in this world. It is estimated that more than 50 million Americans have arthritis or have some or the other kind of joint problem. We can classify this joint pain fact into two sections and have thing discuss with you:

Having pain in joints due to some injuries:

Injuries affect ligaments, bursae, or tendons surrounding the joint, which then leads to joint pain. Due to this internal damage to joints parts it lead to pain, inflammation, swelling and tenderness in joints. Sometimes these types of injuries make the skin color to get changed as blood is accumulated in the nearby tissues.

This type of injuries if treated well, will not again create problem in future, but if left untreated can lead to infection and internal wear and tear in joints and leads to tumors in joint.

If you have pain in your joints due to injuries, then you have to first follow the basic step of RICE.

• R- Rest: If you give proper rest to you joints, it will never again hurt to in future. Sometimes due to staining your joints the small problem to pain becomes a, life time pain.
  
• I-Ice: Try to ice you joints. Keep ice cubes in a cotton cloth and wrap it will. Then have 10-15 minutes of ice massage on your joints.
  
• C-Compress: Compress your joints.  It will help your joints to heal early.
  
• E-Elevate: This will help the swelling to get minimized.

Along with this you have to follow your doctor’s advice and take the medicines on time.

     Having pain in joints due to arthritis:

Arthritis is defined as a complex musculoskeletal disorder that leads to internal wear and tear of synovial fluid and cartilage around the joints. It is not just a disease when you get old but the fact is that every 2 person out of 10 in Americans have arthritis.

There are many types of arthritis form, but most common diseases that make up arthritis are:

•   Osteoarthritis (OA):  Called as a progressive degenerative joint disease.
  
•   Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA): Causes extreme inflammation of the membranes lining the joint.
  
•   Juvenile Arthritis (JA): Commonly found in children below the age of 16 year.

Depending upon the type of arthritis, treatment is followed. You have to first consult a doctor; he will examine you and then decide a proper treatment for you. Still the basic treatment includes:

            Medication: It helps to ease the pain and inflammation in your joints. It helps to prevent the further infection in joints. For example corticosteroids or disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs are given to RA to suppress your immune system.

            Surgery: Joints are replaced with an artificial one, but this is the last option when all the other treatment fails.

            Physical Therapy: This is the first and last line defense army of your joints. When your pain is started it’s the first thing to go with this therapy and is continued it till it can be done with ease. 

Preventing joint pain:

If you have pain, then pain can be minimized but for preventing pain you have to take care that your joints don’t get hurt.  Stay healthy and stay away from injuries. This joint pain fact is applicable for both the type of pain- Pain due to injuries or Pain due to arthritis.

 Before ending this one last point that if you have family history of arthritis then it’s wise enough to get yourself diagnosed if pains in joints are unexplainable.