Protect Your Joints
- Avoid excess strain on joints
- Maintain a healthy weight to avoid putting extra stress on your joints
- Warm-up/cool-down before and after exercising
- Apply ice after injuries
- Wearing proper shoes and using aids such as canes or walkers can also take off some of the strain
Positioning joints wisely helps you use them in ways that avoid extra stress. Use larger, stronger joints to carry loads. For example, use a shoulder bag instead of a hand-held one. Also, avoid keeping the same position for a long period of time.
Heat/Cold
Applying heat helps relax aching muscles, and reduces joint pain and soreness.
Applying cold helps to lessen the pain and swelling in a joint.
Heat applied to an arthritic area can reduce pain, stiffness and muscle spasm. It promotes blood circulation, which nourishes and detoxifies muscle fibers. Having a hot shower before exercise may help you get ready for the workout. You should not apply heat to an inflamed joint. Cold applied to inflamed joints reduces pain and swelling by constricting blood flow.
Viscosupplementation
Another treatment is viscosupplementation, in which a clear gel-like substance is injected into the knee. This substance lubricates the cartilage (much like oil lubricates an engine), reducing pain and allowing greater movement of the knee.
Another treatment is viscosupplementation, in which a clear gel-like substance is injected into the knee. This substance lubricates the cartilage (much like oil lubricates an engine), reducing pain and allowing greater movement of the knee.
Viscosupplementation restores frictionless movement within the joint, thus reducing pain and allowing greater mobility.
Surgery
If one of your joints becomes badly damaged, or if the pain is too strong, your doctor may recommend surgery.
There are different kinds of surgery for OA. With some surgery, bits of cartilage are removed from the joint. Other kinds of surgery repair or rebuild parts of the bone, or replace a joint with an artificial or a man-made joint.(see total knee replacement surgery)
Osteoarthritis may progress to the point where surgery is necessary. Minor surgery can be performed to clean out cartilage debris from the joints, particularly the knee. This is called arthroscopic surgery. It is performed as outpatient surgery and does not usually require an overnight stay in hospital. Severely damaged joints can be reconstructed or surgically replaced with artificial ones called as Joint replacement surgery, and is most often performed to replace hip and knee joints. Artificial joints can last 10-20 years before they require replacement, this is why this type of surgery is delayed until it is clearly necessary.
Supplements
- Chondroitin Sulfate
- Glucosamine
- MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane)
What it’s suppose to do
Reduce pain and inflammation, improve joint function and slow disease progression. Slow deterioration of cartilage, relieve osteoarthritis pain and improve joint mobility. Reduce pain and inflammation.
Massage
Massage is widely used for pain relief, but its results are open to question. At best, massage may relieve muscle ache or tension by increasing blood flow, but benefit is relatively short-lived. Massage should be avoided when joints are especially tender or inflamed, since it can actually worsen your condition at such times. If you’re having a massage done by a professional, make sure he or she understands that, because of your arthritis, you want only the gentlest procedure.