Arthritis is a medical condition that affects your joints. This can be of several types, but all of them cause pain and degrade mobility in your body. This inflammation of joints usually happens over time and occurs mainly in women compared to men. The reduction in your cartilage tissues and normal wear and tear in your body are common causes of arthritis in today’s generation. According to the latest study, an estimated 54.4 million adults have doctor-diagnosed arthritis.
Here, you will find the nine best arthritis treatment options to heal your condition fast and efficiently. So, check them all.
Table of Contents
Medications
Some of the common medications that can help to treat arthritis are:
- Painkillers: This will help alleviate your pain with no effect on the inflammation. Acetaminophen is an over-the-counter option, whereas oxycodone or tramadol are options for severe pain.
- Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs: It helps in reducing both inflammation and pain. Ibuprofen and naproxen are two over-the-counter options that can only be availed through a doctor’s prescription.
- Counterirritants: Some of the ointments and creams have capsaicin or menthol in them. Applying those ointments or creams over the painful joints may interrupt the transmission of pain signals and get relief.
- Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs: This drug is mainly used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. It stops or slows down your immune system to attack the joints. Hydroxychloroquine is one such example of this drug.
- Corticosteroids: This type of drug, like cortisone and prednisone, helps in reducing inflammation and lowers the immune system’s impact. This can either be taken orally or injected directly into the painful joints.
Physical Therapy
There are some types of arthritis where physical therapy can be an effective treatment solution. This therapy exercise helps improve your range of motion and develops strength in the muscles around your joints.
Surgical Treatment
Some of the surgical procedures for arthritis treatment are:
- Joint Repair: In some special arthritis cases, the joints can be realigned or smoothed to alleviate the pain and improve functionality. The doctor uses a small incision over the joint to perform these types of procedures.
- Joint Replacement: Here, the doctor removes your damaged joint and replaces it with an artificial one, mainly on the knees and hips.
- Joint Fusion: This surgical procedure is done for smaller joint areas like the wrist, fingers, and ankles. Here, your two bones in the joint are removed and locked together until they heal into a rigid place.
Weight Management
According to the guidelines from the American College of Rheumatology and Arthritis Foundation (ACR/AF), you must lose weight if you have arthritis or obesity. You can consult a doctor to help you set a target weight that fits your average BMI and design a diet program to achieve that. This weight loss will reduce the stress impact on your weight-bearing joints, enhance mobility, and reduce the chances of future joint injury.
Regular Exercise:
If you want to keep your joints flexible for treating arthritis, you will have to exercise regularly. Water aerobic exercises and swimming can be the ideal solution as the buoyancy of the water helps to reduce the stressful impact on the weight-bearing joints
Heat And Cold Therapy
You can opt for heat treatment that includes taking long, warm showers in the morning to relax the stiffness on the joints. Also, moist heating pads help reduce discomfort overnight.
Cold treatments also help in treating arthritis by relieving joint pain, inflammation, and swelling. You can wrap a bag of frozen vegetables in a towel or a gel ice pack to apply it on the joints where it’s painful for rapid relief action. However, it’s best not to apply ice directly on the skin.
Acupuncture
In this therapeutic treatment, some fine needles will be inserted at some of the specific points of your skin to relieve several types of pain, including the ones caused due to arthritis.
Yoga, Tai Chi For Coping Pain
You must know that reducing your stress will help lower pain and inflammation. According to the ACR/AF, yoga and tai-chi are two combinations that ensure meditation, breathing techniques through low impact exercises, and relaxation. The slow yet stretching postures involved in yoga and tai chi help enhance the flexibility of your joints and range of motion in people having arthritis.
Massage
Massage ensures gentle stroking and kneading of your muscles. This helps in boosting your blood flow and warm the damaged joints to relieve their pain temporarily. However, your massage therapist must know the joints that are affected by arthritis.
Ending Note
You must follow these best nine treatments to witness effective results within a week. The pain in arthritis can be frustrating, making you unable to work efficiently. So, you must follow these solutions, stay in contact with your doctor and get in your best shape and fitness quickly.
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