Degenerative Arthritis Treatment

Once you have a confirmed diagnosis of degenerative arthritis you and your doctor can sit down and start to put together a degenerative arthritis treatment plan. This plan will need to be reviewed regularly and changed as circumstances dictate but, while it may not remove the pain of your arthritis completely, it should go a very long way towards allowing you to lead a normal, productive and virtually pain free life.

This said, it should always be born in mind that there is no cure for degenerative arthritis and you are therefore simply treating the symptoms of the disease when they appear as the disease progresses over time.

Degenerative Arthritis Treatment Plans

Any good degenerative arthritis treatment plan should consist of at least six elements:

A Man Taking Arthritis Medication

1. Medicating the pain. In most cases you will find that over-the-counter or prescription painkillers in the form of analgesics or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) will do the trick and the secret is to take just what you need and no more. Your doctor will work with you to find the correct medication and, if neither of these classes of drugs prove effective, there are others that can be recommended.

2. Exercise. Although it may seem strange to be exercising a painful joint and perhaps more sensible to rest it as much as possible, in fact exercise to keep the joint lubricated is essential to slow down the progression of the disease and give you the maximum use of the joint. You must of course be careful when it comes to exercise and need to ensure that your exercise is having a positive effect and not doing further damage to your joints. For this reason you should seek professional advice from your doctor when putting together an exercise plan.

Any exercise plan should include exercises to improve flexibility, strengthen your muscles and improve your endurance by strengthening your cardiovascular system and improving your overall health.

3. Protecting your joints by ensuring their correct alignment. To ensure that no further or future damage to your joints you need to pay particular attention to your posture when sitting, standing up, walking, running and lifting. Incorrect positioning of your feet when standing up from a chair or incorrect positioning of your back when lifting a heavy object from the floor can easily damage or weaken a joint and lead to further or future damage.

With already affected joints you should consider such things as using strapping to support the joints or taking weight off the joint by using a walking stick, walker or crutches. Other tricks include breaking activity up so that you have short periods of activity interspersed with rest, rather than one extended period of activity. You can also look at varying your tasks throughout the day so that you are not concentrating your activity on any one joint for too long.

4. Applying heat or cold as appropriate. The pain of degenerative arthritis can often be eased by applying either heat or cold to the painful joint. You will need to experiment to discover which works best for you because some people find that heat works while other fair better with cooling. Whether you are applying heat or cooling your joint you should not do either for more than about twenty minutes at a time because prolonged heating or cooling can damage the joint further.

5. Removing unnecessary weight from your joints. If you are overweight then you are putting an unnecessary strain on your hips, knees and feet and even a few pounds of extra weight can make a significant difference to the damage done to the joints, particularly to those of the knees. Shedding those excess pounds can make a very real difference to your arthritis and, of course, to your health in general.

6. Knowing how you can help yourself. There are many things that you can do for yourself to make your life easier and to manage the pain of your arthritis and you need to take some time to learn how to cope with degenerative arthritis. Positive thinking, massage, relaxation exercises, prayer, diet and dietary supplements are just a few of the many things that can help and you need to learn how they can be used and then to experiment with their use to see what you find helpful.

Finally, do not forget that if, despite all of your efforts in putting together a degenerative arthritis treatment plan, you still find that it is difficult to cope with your arthritis then one further possibility which you might like to discuss with your doctor is that of surgery.