5 Arthritis Treatment Options That Can Help Manage Your Pain And Inflammation
Arthritis is a painful condition that causes your joints to deteriorate. In addition to pain, you may experience problems with mobility due to joint damage. You might even have disfigurement due to the changes in your joints. You'll need to work closely with your doctor or specialist to manage your arthritis so you can have a high quality of life. Here are some arthritis treatments to consider.
1. Lifestyle Changes
Lifestyle changes can sometimes help with symptom relief. For instance, losing weight takes pressure off of your hip and knee joints, so your doctor might recommend diet and exercise for weight loss to help with joint pain.
Increasing exercise can also help with mobility by keeping your joints flexible. However, you'll want to do exercises approved by your doctor so you don't stress your joints, such as swimming and water aerobics.
2. Medications
Medications are often important for managing arthritis. Anti-inflammatory medication helps reduce pain and joint inflammation. Be sure to take these as your doctor recommends so you can manage inflammation and pain for the long term.
Even if your symptoms get better, your doctor may want you to continue with medication so your symptoms don't come back. You might also need stronger anti-inflammatory drugs when you have flares. The type of medications your doctor prescribes depends on the type of arthritis you have.
3. Heat Therapy
You may find a hot bath to be relaxing and a help for reducing your joint pain. You might also try a heating pad or hot water bottle on your painful joint. You might want to alternate heat therapy with ice or just use ice alone if it feels more effective than heat. You can use both ice and heat therapy at home to help get relief from inflammation and pain.
4. Alternative Treatments
Treatments like massage, tai chi, yoga, acupuncture, or hypnosis might help your general health and manage your pain. You might even benefit from counseling so you can learn to cope with your disease and chronic discomfort.
5. Joint Surgery
Sometimes surgery is necessary to treat arthritis. You might need a joint replacement, fusion, or joint repair. This arthritis treatment can be done on any type of joint, although replacing the hip, knee, and shoulder joints are among the more common types of joint surgery.
Since joint surgery requires recovery time and is invasive, your doctor may try other treatments first. However, if you don't get good results, a joint replacement could be a good way to replace a bad joint and get rid of the pain in that joint permanently so you can stay mobile and have less daily pain.
Contact a medical professional to learn more about arthritis treatments.