The word arthritis literally just means a joint inflammation. The disease is usually caused by the degeneration, injuries and inflammation of the joints and if not prevented or stopped from further deterioration can be a very painful, debilitating and even crippling disease. Day to day activities such as your mobility can become a humongous chore or even impossible if the arthritic condition is worsened through neglect or improper treatments. So if you are suffering from the symptoms of this disease, you must by all means try to stop it from getting worse and worse until it reaches a stage when it is just wasting you away.

Yes, you can stop arthritis on its track or at least slow it down as long as you are doggedly committed to combat the disease and live a lifestyle of winning this battle. So do keep in mind that the objectives of this mission is to minimize pain, diminish its symptoms, stop or slow down the disease's progression of joint destruction and to enjoy joint functionalities and mobility which arthritis is taking away from you. There are also many myths and fictions about this disease and so you will need to get to know what works and what doesn't.

Below are 8 easy steps on how you can get rid of arthritis and prevent your joint degeneration from getting worse.

1) Watch What You Eat - Your diet is an important battle plan to stop the relentless onslaught of arthritis. Having a healthy and well balanced diet with plenty of anti-inflammatory foods can prevent your arthritis from getting worse and also offer you some pain relief. Examples of foods with anti-inflammatory properties are tomatoes, green leafy vegetables, fatty fish, fruits, olive oil​ and curcumin turmeric, just to name a couple of them. Do your own research for them. 


































Here I will give a special emphasis on curcumin turmeric powder which is a spice commonly used for cooking curry dishes in Asian sub-continent countries such as India and Bangladesh because it has a very high anti-inflammatory effect and can ease pain and reduce joint swelling. Furthermore, it can be taken in supplement form and thus is easily consumed at any time and any place. Watch the video below on the benefits of humble the turmeric spice.






 

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2) Take Your Medicines - Common medicines prescribed by doctors for arthritis are usually for pain relief, to reduce swelling and inflammation and those that help to prevent or slow down the further degeneration of your joints. Although this is painfully obvious (pun intended), for medicines to be effective, you must take them as directed. This is because some people forget to take their medication when they are feeling better or simply neglecting to take them as directed by their physicians.

When you are not having pain at that moment, it does not mean that the disease has stopped ravaging your joints, so do take your medicines as prescribed by your health professionals.

3) Watch Your Stress Level - High stress level may be a trigger of certain types of arthritis such as gout and rheumatoid arthritis. However this is just a theory from anecdotal evidences, not a proven fact, yet. Nevertheless, whether this is true or not is not important, what is important is that we have to combat the disease at all fronts. Besides, a stress free life does bring along with it many other health benefits as well. So why not take things easier and let your hair down occasionally, right?

4) Protect Your Joints - Awkward movements and postures can cause further damage to your joints. For example, people are spending way too much time on mobile games and texting messages (commonly known as text neck). To do these things, your head is bent forward most of the time and that is putting tremendous amount of stress on the cervical spine (neck). Remember your head is as heavy as a 12 pound bowling ball and the strain on the neck can cause you severe neck pain in the long run.

Use the elevator or escalator instead of walking down the stairs as every step you take down the staircase creates a jarring impact on your knees, ankles, hip along with the entire spine. This is especially so if you are running down the staircase with two steps at a time. Furthermore, walking down the stairs will again make you look down and thus is also creating stress on your neck as well.

If you are lifting weights to strengthen your muscles and to improve your functionality and mobility, engage a professional instructor who is knowledgeable in training arthritic clients to guide you on the right forms and lifting postures so as not to unknowingly aggravate your arthritic condition instead of improving it.

5) Exercise Regularly - To keep your joints well oiled and staying away from stiffness and pain, move them often as possible. One way is to keep a regular stretching and exercise program. Also you should build strength in the muscles around the joints so that your joints can be better supported by the muscles surrounding them.

Walk whenever you can to your destinations and try not to rely on the ease of transportation. Climb up the stairs whenever you can instead of taking the elevators and escalators. Yes, only climbing up, not down to avoid joint impact as described earlier. Besides, walking up the stairs will strengthen your lower body muscles and at the same time, burn up some unwanted calories.

Do avoid high impact exercises like running, soccer games, boxing or playing tennis. Swimming will be a good idea as it is a good stretching exercise without any jarring impact on the joints. Walking uphill and riding a bicycle are other good low impact cardiovascular exercises and they also build up the lower body strength as well as your core muscles for posture stabilization.

Using an Elliptical cross trainer machine for your workouts is also a great full body exercise. The exercise require many joint movements without stressing them with any impact which is excellent for improving your joint functions. It also gives you a great cardio workout as well.














 

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6) Get Plenty Of Shut Eye —Getting enough sleep is vital to keep your arthritis from getting worse. Your body produces all sorts of hormones like human growth hormones and testosterone when you are sleeping so as to regenerate and repair your body from the daily wear and tear. So if you are not having enough sleep, you will not be able to rejuvenate your body effectively and sufficiently. Furthermore, lack of sleep also puts your body into a stress mode which as discussed earlier can accelerate your arthritis symptoms.












7) Lose Weight - If you are overweight, it may be a good idea to lose some of your body fat. Losing your excess weight not only gives you multiple good health benefits, it will also help to prevent your arthritis from getting worse. If you are too heavy, your weight bearing joints such as your back, hip, knees and ankles are taking the brunt of your weight and in time will wear away your joint cartilages and tendons. Try this weight loss diet to get rid of your body fat.

8) Acupuncture - In traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is one of the many methods used by this system of medicine to treat arthritis for well over two thousand years. Although acupuncture for the treatment for arthritis is not largely verified by Western medicine, there are just too many anecdotal evidences that arthritis sufferers responded well to acupuncture treatment, especially so in the area of pain relief. Why not try it out for yourself?

Arthritis is a chronic disease that usually will not go away and stay with you for life. If you don't take adequate steps to prevent and stop it from getting worse, well, it will continue to wreak havoc in your joints. So stop and get rid of arthritis now by looking after yourself and live a more active pain free life.




 

 

1) Can you tell me more about rheumatoid arthritis? - We often hear about rheumatoid arthritis (RA) because it is one of the most common form of arthritis. The most common type of arthritis is the osteoarthritis.

However, the major difference is that RA is an autoimmune disease meaning that it is a disease in which your immune system attacks your own body. So in RA, the body's immune system attacks its own joints, causing the tissues around the joints to swell and ache.

Women are estimated to be thrice more susceptible to rheumatoid arthritis than are the men. Other arthritis conditions usually affect only the weight-bearing joints such as your knees, neck, ankles, spine and hips but in the RA, it affects the entire skeletal structure. So the agonizing pain may be felt all over the entire body.

2) I am only in my mid thirties and I am already diagnosed  as having arthritis, is this common? - When we think of arthritis, we usually think of only middle aged and older people getting it. Although it is true that people over 40 years old are more likely to get the disease than younger people, arthritis can affect younger people too, especially those who had joint injuries before or who are genetically predisposed to the disease.

Obesity can also be a causation to getting arthritis for younger people especially on the hips and knees joints. This is because being overweight increases the stress on the weight bearing joints and in the process wreck the joints and the connective tissues around it.

3) What is the difference between rheumatism and arthritis? - To the general public, arthritis and rheumatism are often lumped together to mean joint pains and inflammations. In the medical fraternity, the word rheumatism is no longer in its vocabulary as rheumatism is now classified as certain type of arthritis such as 

rheumatoid arthritis. In the Black's medical dictionary, rheumatism is described as "an obsolete medical term which no longer has a defined meaning", although there are certain words which are somewhat ascribed to rheumatism which are still being used today, for instance as in, rheumatoid, rheumatology or rheumatologist.

4) How effective are Glucosamine and Chondroitin supplements to treat arthritis? - This is a question that the medical community still cannot figure out conclusively at the moment. From anecdotal testimonies usually proffered by the manufacturers of the supplements seem to indicate that the supplements work.

However, these testimonies may be considered as somewhat biased although some controlled experiments do show that there is a somewhat synergistic effect when glucosamine and chondroitin are used together when tested on animals in suppressing excessive bone resorption. As such, this may suggest that the consumption of glucosamine and chondroitin supplements may prevent the weakening of the bones and joints.

On the other hand, there are also several other research which showed that the glucosamine and chondroitin combination supplement probably serves only as a  placebo effect. Yet there are others which showed that moderate to severe arthritis patients did experience some kind of pain relief especially on the knee joints and those with type 1 arthritis. 

These are the reasons why your question is still in the limbo waiting for affirmative answers, at least for the moment until more conclusive evidence show that the supplements work. In the meantime, there is no harm in taking these supplements for a couple of months to see if they work for you. You can always stop consuming them if they do not work.

 

 

 

 

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