Arthritis: Keep Your Joints Healthy

There are a lot of medications for arthritis, but physical therapy is still a major part of the traditional treatment.

Physical therapists focus on restoring or maintaining physical function by designing an individualized treatment program for you. The physical therapist first will thoroughly evaluate your pain, functional ability, strength, and endurance levels, then will provide advice about ways to ease pressure on your joints while building muscles to support them. Physical therapy can take place at a hospital or outpatient clinic, in the therapist's office, or in your home. Some activities can be done alone; others require the therapist's assistance.

Exercise

If you have arthritis, you know that if you don't exercise regularly, you pay the price in pain, stiffness, and fatigue. Regular exercise not only helps maintain joint function, but also relieves stiffness and decreases pain and fatigue. Feeling tired may be partly the result of inflammation and medications, but it's also caused by muscle weakness and poor stamina. If a muscle isn't used, it can lose 3% of its function every day and 30% of its bulk in just a week.

Work with your physician or physical therapist to develop your own exercise program. Most likely this will involve exercises with three goals.

Increase range of motion. To increase your range of motion, move a joint as far as it can go and then try to push a little farther. These exercises can be done any time, even when your joints are painful or swollen, as long as you do them gently.

Strengthen your muscles. Strengthening exercises use resistance to build muscles. You can use your own body weight as resistance. One example: Sit in a chair. Now lean forward and stand by pushing up with your thigh muscles (try to use your arms only for balance). Stand a moment, then sit back down, using your thigh muscles. This simple exercise will help ease the strain on your knees by building up your thigh muscles. Avoid these exercises during arthritis flare-ups.

Build endurance. Aerobic activities such as walking, swimming, and bicycling can all build your heart and lung function, which in turn increases endurance and overall health. Just be careful to pick activities with low impact on your joints. Avoid high-impact activities like jogging. If you have a flare-up of symptoms, wait until it calms down before continuing.

Diet

The idea that a diet, supplement, or vitamin pill could prevent or cure arthritis is very appealing, but there's still no scientific evidence of an effective dietary solution for most types of arthritis. Gout, which can be triggered by certain foods, is the notable exception. There is good information about this on the web.

It’s important to keep two issues in mind when it comes to diet. First it's important to eat in a way that helps you to maintain a healthy weight, because excess pounds only increase the stress on your joints. To maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly and eat a diet low in saturated and trans fats and high in vegetables and lean proteins.

Next, there is some evidence that omega-3 fats, found in cold-water fish such as salmon, herring, sardines, and mackerel, may help reduce inflammation. And some early studies have found that consuming such fats on a regular basis can reduce morning stiffness and joint tenderness in people with rheumatoid arthritis. It may be a good idea to increase your consumption of omega-3 fats, if only because this type of diet is a good way to reduce your risk of heart disease.

Glucosamine and Chondroitin
Glucosamine and chondroitin are both chemical components of cartilage, which has raised the hope that supplements containing synthetic versions of these substances may help stop joint destruction and ease arthritis pain. And over the years, some people who have osteoarthritis have claimed to have less pain and stiffness when regularly taking such products.
A major study designed to answer whether these supplements relieve pain, concluded that the answer may depend on the severity of pain you experience. It was called The Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial (GAIT), reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006, involved more than 1,500 people with osteoarthritis of the knee.

Without going into the technical details, if you're wondering whether you should take glucosamine and chondroitin supplements, the answer is: It depends. If you are experiencing moderate to severe osteoarthritis pain, try the glucosamine-chondroitin combination for two to three months. If you find it eases your pain, keep using it. If not, you might as well save your money. As always, if you choose to take these or any other alternative preparations, be sure to inform your physician.