Arthritis & Pains

Arthritis refers to a range of conditions that involve pain and inflammation in the joints.

Is it a degenerative condition, which means the symptoms tend to worsen over time, or is it an autoimmune type of arthritis with associated extra-articular symptoms, characterized by inflammatory flares and a chronic clinical course?

These two types of arthritis include osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

OA mainly results when wear and tear of cartilage causes bones to rub together, leading to friction, damage, and inflammation.

RA is a systemic condition that triggers symptoms throughout the body. It’s an autoimmune disease and happens when the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy joint tissue.

Doctors can prescribe medication to relieve the pain of arthritis, but they often recommend natural approaches, too.

Remember to talk to your doctor before trying any remedy for arthritis, whether it involves medication or not.

Your weight can have a big impact on arthritis symptoms. Extra weight puts more pressure on your joints, especially your knees, hips, and feet.

Guidelines from the American College of Rheumatology and Arthritis Foundation (ACR/AF) strongly recommend losing weight if you have OA and overweight or obesity.

Your doctor can help you set a target weight and design a program to help you reach that target.

Reducing the stress on your joints by losing weight can help:

• improve your mobility
• decrease pain
• prevent future damage to your joints

If you have arthritis, exercise can help you:

• manage your weight
• keep your joints flexible
• strengthen muscles around your joints, which offers more support

Current guidelines strongly recommend starting an appropriate exercise program. Exercising with a trainer or another person may be especially beneficial, as it increases motivation.

Good options include low-impact exercises, such as:

• walking
• cycling
• tai chi
• water activities
• swimming

Heat and cold treatments can help relieve arthritis pain and inflammation.

• Heat treatments can include taking a long, warm shower or bath in the morning to help ease stiffness and using an electric blanket or moist heating pad to reduce discomfort overnight.
• Cold treatments can help relieve joint pain, swelling, and inflammation. Wrap a gel ice pack or a bag of frozen vegetables in a towel and apply it to painful joints for quick relief. Never apply ice directly to the skin.
• Capsaicin, which comes from chili peppers, is a component of some topical ointments and creams that you can buy over the counter. These products provide warmth that can soothe joint pain.

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medical treatment that involves inserting thin needles into specific points on your body. Practitioners say it works by rerouting energies and restoring balance in your body.

Acupuncture may reduce arthritis pain, and the ACR/AF conditionally recommend it. While there’s not enough evidence to confirm its benefits, the risk of harm is considered low.

Be sure to find a licensed and certified acupuncturist to carry out this treatment

Meditation and relaxation techniques may help reduce the pain of arthritis by lowering stress and enabling you to cope with it better. Reducing stress may also help lower inflammation and pain.

The ACR/AF recommend tai chi and yoga. These combine meditation, relaxation, and breathing techniques with low-impact exercise.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), studies have found that practicing mindfulness meditation is helpful for some people with RA.

Anxiety, stress, and depression are all common complications of conditions that involve chronic pain, such as arthritis.

Learn more about depression and arthritis.

A diet that’s rich in fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole foods can help boost your immune system and your overall health. There’s some evidence that dietary choices can affect people with both RA and OA.

A plant-based diet provides antioxidants, which can help reduce inflammation by eliminating free radicals from the body.

On the other hand, a diet rich in red meat, processed foods, saturated fat, and added sugar and salt may aggravate inflammation, which is a characteristic of arthritis.

These foods can also contribute to other health conditions, including obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, and other complications, so they’re likely not beneficial for people with arthritis.

Current OA guidelines do not recommend taking vitamin D or fish oil supplements as a treatment, but consuming foods containing these nutrients as part of a balanced diet may contribute to overall well-being.

What should you eat to stay healthy with arthritis?

Which foods should you avoid?

Turmeric, the yellow spice common in Indian dishes, contains a chemical called curcumin. It has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Research suggests it may help reduce arthritis pain and inflammation.

In an animal study that the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health cited, scientists gave turmeric to rats. Results showed that it reduced inflammation in their joints.

More research is needed to show how turmeric works, but adding a small amount of this mild but tasty spice to your dinner is likely to be a safe option.

Spice up your life by grabbing some online today.

Massage can provide an overall sense of well-being. It may also help manage joint pain and discomfort.

The ACR/AF do not currently recommend massage as a treatment, as they say there’s not enough evidence to confirm that it works.

They add, however, that massage is unlikely to pose a risk and may provide indirect benefits, such as reducing stress.

Ask your doctor to recommend a massage therapist who has experience in treating people with arthritis. Alternatively, you could ask a physical therapist to teach you self-massage.

Many herbal supplements may reduce joint pain, although scientific research hasn’t confirmed that any specific herb or supplement can treat arthritis.

Some of these herbs include:

• boswellia
• bromelain
• devil’s claw
• ginkgo
• stinging nettle
• thunder god vine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t monitor herbs and supplements for quality, purity, or safety, so you cannot be sure exactly what a product contains. Be sure to buy from a reputable source.

Always talk to your doctor before trying a new supplement, as some can cause side effects and dangerous drug interactions.

Arthritis is a leading cause of pain and disability worldwide. You can find plenty of advice about easing the pain of arthritis and other conditions with exercise, medication and stress reduction. How do you know what will work for you?

Here are some do’s and don’ts to help you figure it out.

Basics

Whatever your condition, it will be easier to stay ahead of your pain if you:

• Learn all you can about your condition, including what type of arthritis you have and whether any of your joints are already damaged
• Enlist your doctor, friends and family in managing your pain
• Tell your doctor if your pain changes

Everyday routines

Pay attention to your joints, whether sitting, standing or engaging in activity.

• Keep your joints moving. Do daily, gentle stretches that move your joints through their full range of motion.
• Use good posture. A physical therapist can show you how to sit, stand and move correctly.
• Know your limits. Balance activity and rest, and don’t overdo.

In addition, lifestyle changes are important for easing pain.

• Manage weight. Being overweight can increase complications of arthritis and contribute to arthritis pain. Making incremental, permanent lifestyle changes resulting in gradual weight loss is often the most effective method of weight management.
• Quit smoking. Smoking causes stress on connective tissues, which can increase arthritis pain.

Exercise

When you have arthritis, movement can decrease your pain and stiffness, improve your range of motion, strengthen your muscles, and increase your endurance.

What to do

Choose the right kinds of activities — those that build the muscles around your joints but don’t damage the joints themselves. A physical or occupational therapist can help you develop an exercise program that’s right for you.

Focus on stretching, range-of-motion exercises and gradual progressive strength training. Include low-impact aerobic exercise, such as walking, cycling or water exercises, to improve your mood and help control your weight.

What to avoid

Avoid activities that involve high impact and repetitive motion, such as:

• Running
• Jumping
• Tennis
• High-impact aerobics
• Repeating the same movement, such as a tennis serve, again and again

Medications

Many types of medications are available for arthritis pain relief. Most are relatively safe, but no medication is completely free of side effects. Talk with your doctor to formulate a medication plan for your specific pain symptoms.

What to do

Over-the-counter pain medications, such as acetaminophen (Tylenol, others), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others) or naproxen sodium (Aleve) can help relieve occasional pain triggered by activity your muscles and joints aren’t used to — such as gardening after a winter indoors.

Cream containing capsaicin may be applied to skin over a painful joint to relieve pain. Use alone or with oral medication.

Consult your doctor if over-the-counter medications don’t relieve your pain.

What to avoid

• Overtreatment. Talk with your doctor if you find yourself using over-the-counter pain relievers regularly.
• Undertreatment. Don’t try to ignore severe and prolonged arthritis pain. You might have joint inflammation or damage requiring daily medication.
• Focusing only on pain. Depression is more common in people with arthritis. Doctors have found that treating depression with antidepressants and other therapies reduces not only depression symptoms but also arthritis pain.

Physical and emotional integration

It’s no surprise that arthritis pain has a negative effect on your mood. If everyday activities make you hurt, you’re bound to feel discouraged. But when these normal feelings escalate to create a constant refrain of fearful, hopeless thoughts, your pain can actually get worse and harder to manage.

What to do

Therapies that interrupt destructive mind-body interactions include:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy. This well-studied, effective combination of talk therapy and behavior modification helps you identify — and break — cycles of self-defeating thoughts and actions.
• Relaxation therapy. Meditating, doing yoga, deep breathing, listening to music, being in nature, writing in a journal — do whatever helps you relax. There’s no downside to relaxation, and it can help ease pain.
• Acupuncture. Some people get pain relief through acupuncture treatments, when a trained acupuncturist inserts hair-thin needles at specific points on your body. It can take several weeks before you notice improvement.
• Heat and cold. Use of heat, such as applying heating pads to aching joints, taking hot baths or showers, or immersing painful joints in warm paraffin wax, can help relieve pain temporarily. Be careful not to burn yourself. Use heating pads for no more than 20 minutes at a time.Use of cold, such as applying ice packs to sore muscles, can relieve pain and inflammation after strenuous exercise.
• Massage. Massage might improve pain and stiffness temporarily. Make sure your massage therapist knows where your arthritis affects you.

What to avoid

• Smoking. If you’re addicted to tobacco, you might use it as an emotional coping tool. But it’s counterproductive: Toxins in smoke cause stress on connective tissue, leading to more joint problems.
• A negative attitude. Negative thoughts are self-perpetuating. As long as you dwell on them, they escalate, which can increase your pain and risk of disability. Instead, distract yourself with activities you enjoy, spend time with people who support you and consider talking to a therapist.