Best arthritis treatment
The inflammation of the joint(s) primarily due to wear and tear or autoimmune disorders are responsible for arthritis. However, there are several types of arthritis that also differ in treatment procedure; hence your doctor will have to know its source before they can recommend to you the best treatment.
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There are, however, two prominent and common types of arthritis, which are Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis that is caused by the occurrence of wear and tear on the joint’s cartilage at the points where the bones form joints. Hence, it results in the gliding of the bones against themselves, which restricts movements due to lack of friction-free cartilages and severe pains when one moves the part of the body that possesses a joint. Apart from this wear and tear symptom caused by osteoarthritis, they also affect the entire functioning of the joint by impairing the connective tissues that connect the muscle to the bones to hold the joint in place.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a type of arthritis that occurs when the body’s immune system attacks the membrane (synovial membrane) that covers the entire joint (the lining of the joint capsule). Which then results in the swelling and inflammation of the synovial membrane. If left without medical attention, it will lead to the sporadic destruction of the joint in the long run.Diagnosis of arthritis
As said earlier, there are various types of arthritis, with different causes and treatment procedures. Self-medicating could cause more harm than treatment; hence in order to know the best treatment your kind of arthritis needs, you will need to get recommendations from health care specialists or any physician.
The doctor you visit for recommendations will need visuals of your joint that is infested with arthritis, and this is done by the use of imaging scans such as X-rays, CT Scans, and MRI to check the impairment on the cartilages & joints. This will, however, give them the go-ahead to perform several physical examinations.
The physical examination involves the analyzing of the synovial fluid and other factors that limit the friction-free movement of the joints. These examinations performed on the affected joint that ranges from physical examinations to the use of imaging scans, will provide the physician with the right information needed to diagnose the type of arthritis one is suffering from in order to recommend the appropriate treatment procedure for your arthritis.
Treatment procedures for arthritis
The primary aim of treating arthritis is to harness & mitigate the pain you experience and forestall the deterioration of arthritis due to mismanagement. Choosing the best treatment procedure for your arthritis is dependent on the health care specialists or any other physician’s examinations. It could be physical therapy if the arthritis condition is mild and the use of medications or surgical treatment procedures if it is severe.
In physical therapy, you will be vigilant of your joint whenever you sit, stand, or get involved with several activities that put your joint to work. These include your daily routine, change of lifestyle, and exercises or fitness training.
You can harness mild arthritis by watching your daily activities. These activities include the continuous movement of the joints, adopting good postures for sitting, standing, and walking, and limiting the use of your joint. The constant movement of the joint will forestall stiffness, which is part of the symptoms of arthritis, and this can only be done by stretching your joint to its full length with gentleness every day. Furthermore, you will have to forgo activities capable of posing threats to your arthritis infected joint to forestall deterioration of the mild condition.
The change of lifestyle that also poses a threat to your arthritis condition by causing you pains will ease and forestall the pain. These lifestyles include the management of weight and quit smoking.
The increment in the body’s weight will stress the joint infested with arthritis and cause severe pain. Hence, if you adopt a lifestyle that reduces the size of your body, you will be free from the discomforting aftermath of joint pain.
You will also have to quit smoking because it will put stress upon the connective tissues, which will, therefore, increase arthritis pain.
Exercise or fitness training may be dangerous if you do it the wrong way; hence you will have to be careful in choosing the kind of fitness training you indulge in, to choose that which will build the muscles around your joint rather than causing damages to the joints. The exercises you should indulge in include stretching and low-impact aerobic exercises such as cycling and walking, and other gradual progressive training. However, it would be best if you avoided high impact aerobic and intermittent motion exercises such as jumping, running, and tennis.
The use of Medications for the treatment of arthritis
There are several types of medications required for the treatment of arthritis that ranges from mild to severe conditions, but they might come with various side effects. It is, however, advisable to consult your doctor so that they will recommend you drugs that have easy-to-control side effects. These drugs include Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) that will help control the pains and level of inflammation. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs include ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, and others) or naproxen sodium (Aleve) and salicylate.
Analgesics help in the mitigation of pains but do not reduce inflammation. Analgesics drugs include hydrocodone (Vicodin) or acetaminophen (Tylenol).
Immunosuppressants primarily help in the reduction of inflammations. Immunosuppressant drugs include prednisone or cortisone.
Other over-the-counter pain medications such as ointments or creams that contain capsaicin as their active ingredient may be applied to the painful region to ease the pain from your arthritis.
If these treatment procedures stated above do not relieve your arthritis pain, your doctor may recommend the replacement of your joint with an artificial one. The most common type of joint replacement is done to the hips and knees. Furthermore, if the degree of severity of your arthritis on your fingers or wrist is extreme, joint fusion will. Be the only option whereby your doctor will join the bones together until they heal in unison to become one.
