Suffering from joint pain can severely affect an individual's daily life and well-being. It affects people of all ages and be caused by various conditions, from arthritis and injuries to autoimmune diseases and infections. The pain and discomfort make it difficult to carry out everyday tasks, such as walking, climbing stairs, or even getting out of bed in the morning.
Chronic joint pain can lead to feelings of frustration, anxiety, and depression that can significantly affect a person's mental health and well-being. In this article, we will discuss the types of arthritis, their symptoms, and the various treatment options available to alleviate joint pain and improve your quality of life.
What is Arthritis?
Arthritis is a disorder that causes inflammation, stiffness, pain, and a decrease in mobility in your joints.
Arthritis can affect various body parts, including the feet, hands, hips, and knees. Different types of arthritis exist, and each type has unique symptoms and treatment options. Although arthritis is commonly associated with older adults, it can also affect people of all ages, including children and adults of both genders.
However, most types, including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia, are more common in women. Males are more prone to gout.
Types of Arthritis
Some common types of arthritis are listed below:
Osteoarthritis
The most prevalent form of arthritis is osteoarthritis, which causes the cartilage on the ends of bones to degenerate. This results in bones rubbing against each other, leading to discomfort and pain. This condition commonly affects joints in the fingers, knees, and hips.
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic condition that affects joints in your body, but it commonly affects the hands, wrists, and knees. In this condition, the body's immune system attacks the joints, leading to inflammation at the joint lining. The inflammation can cause damage to the surrounding tissues, including the bone and cartilage.
Gout
Gout is a painful condition arising from the body's inability to eliminate uric acid, a naturally occurring chemical. Excess uric acid can crystallize into needle-like formations in the joints, causing acute pain, swelling, and inflammation. Gout commonly affects the knee and wrist joints.
Symptoms of Arthritis
The symptoms of various forms of arthritis might vary in severity from person to person. However, some common symptoms manifested may include:
- Severe joint pain
- Having difficulty holding objects, squatting, or climbing stairs
- A restricted range of motion
- Stiffness in the morning that resolves with movement
- After-rest stiffness
- Inflammation of the joints
- Joint pain, stiffness, or swelling in multiple places
- As you age, most of your joints may become painful and swollen
- Swelling does not go away and can impair your ability to work, walk, or carry out daily tasks
- Tiredness and weight loss
Treatment Options for Arthritis
Discuss with your doctor as soon as you notice signs of arthritis. The longer you delay seeking treatment, the more damage it may cause to your joints. Your doctor may recommend treatments to help decrease the progression of arthritis and keep you functioning.
Treatments for arthritis include:
- Medications to relieve inflammation and pain: These may include over-the-counter medications such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen, aspirin, or a combination of medicines prescribed by your doctor.
- Immunosuppressive medications: Immunosuppressive medications slow or stop the attack by weakening parts of the immune system. For many arthritis patients, the drugs may help reduce chronic pain and inflammation and slow down joint tissue degeneration.
- Topical creams and ointments: The active chemicals in topical arthritis cream or gel are absorbed by the skin and penetrate to reduce arthritic joint pain. These medications are commonly available over-the-counter.
- Physical therapy: It is a way to strengthen muscles and improve range of motion in certain cases.
- Surgery: Surgery is required in cases of severely damaged joints. The most commonly replaced joints are the hips and knees.
How to Prevent Arthritis?
As you age, a few healthy habits might lower your risk of getting sore joints. Following are some techniques that can help you prevent arthritis.
1. Exercise
Regular physical activity is one of the best ways to prevent arthritis. It helps keep the joints mobile and strengthens the muscles that support them. Walking, doing household chores, and engaging in activities with children and pets are good options. One can derive the most from regular exercise, as per their age and fitness level.
Walking, swimming, and cycling are forms of cardio exercise that increase endurance. It can help you lose some weight that might put extra strain on your joints while enhancing your general fitness levels. Try to engage in 30 minutes of aerobic activity.
Exercises like stretching, yoga, and Pilates keep your joints flexible throughout their full range of action, avoid stiffness, and lower your risk of injury. Stretch at least four to five times weekly, holding the stretch for ten to fifteen seconds. Stretching is a must after a workout or when you first wake up.
2. Consume Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Polyunsaturated fatty acids, a subclass of
omega-3 fatty acids, help reduce inflammation. Omega-3s help reduce arthritic discomfort in the joints by functioning as lipid mediators of inflammation precursors. It also helps reduce and control the autoimmune inflammatory response.
Studies have demonstrated that they may be effective in treating or preventing experimental arthritis and helping to reduce the disease activity of rheumatoid arthritis.
3. Stop Smoking:
It can be challenging to break the habit. However, stopping smoking helps prevent arthritis in addition to reducing the risk of heart and lung disease.
The
researchers postulate that the elevated risk of arthritis affects the immune system of smokers. Arthritis is an inflammatory condition, and smoking makes the entire body more prone to inflammation. Smoking can also adversely impact the line of treatment.
4. Check your Blood Sugar Levels:
Autoimmune arthritis diseases are often associated with inflammation linked to sugar consumption. Additionally, there are shared risk factors for
Type II diabetes and arthritis, leading to correlations between multiple types of arthritis and diabetes. One possible explanation is that high blood sugar levels can cause the body to be in a consistent low-grade inflammatory condition. Therefore, it is paramount to manage diabetes and receive frequent blood sugar checks to prevent complications such as nerve and eye damage.
Individuals with arthritis should undergo more thorough screening and strict control of risk factors for developing diabetes mellitus. Keeping the blood glucose level in check can help reduce the risk of complications associated with both arthritis and diabetes.
5. Consciously Stretch Each Day:
Think about stretching in both its static and dynamic forms. Dynamic stretches include the yoga cat-cow stretch, wrist circles, ankle circles, arm swings, and pointing and flexing your feet. They will appear as actions that warm up the muscles and joints. Additionally, static stretches are crucial for improving flexibility, easing stiffness, building low tension, and reducing discomfort and pain.
A few extra pounds can seem simple to ignore, but every pound added stresses the knees by four pounds and strains the hips by one pound. As a result of the pressure, the cartilage that cushions the joints begins to break down.
6. Use Vitamins to Lower Your Risk of Developing Arthritis:
There isn't a miracle drug or dietary supplement that can unquestionably treat or prevent arthritis. However, according to
2020 research, consuming omega-3 supplements may lessen your risk of rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory arthritis.
Curcumin is the active compound in turmeric that works similarly to calm inflammation and suppress the inflammatory response of rheumatoid arthritis-causing cells as omega-3 supplements do.
Nobody can doubt the advantages of
vitamin C, regardless of whether they have arthritis or not. Therefore, it makes sense to keep your vitamin C levels in check. Vitamin C helps patients with early arthritis, without a doubt.
The Takeaway
It’s not always possible to prevent arthritis. There are hundreds of different types of arthritis, each with its causes and risk factors. However, whether or not people will develop the illness also depends on heredity.
Quitting smoking and drinking, exercising, and dieting all play a significant role in avoiding arthritis. One can attempt to adopt a low-fat, anti-inflammatory, and omega-3 fatty acid-rich diet. They should exercise regularly and maintain a healthy weight to keep their joints mobile.
Anyone experiencing joint pain should consult a doctor. Early treatment may stop or reduce joint deterioration.