Arthritis Treatment Options
Once you get diagnosed with a type of arthritis, there are different ways to treat the symptoms. Your healthcare provider will make a treatment plan that is based on the severity of your arthritis, what type of arthritis you have, its symptoms, and your overall health. Treatment options are:
- Medication: anti-inflammatory and pain medication may relieve your symptoms. In case you’ve rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis, doctors probably recommend biologics, this will attack your immune system’s inflammatory response.
- Physical therapy: improving your strength, range of motion and overall mobility will help your rehabilitation and will keep your joints smoothly. This is important because if you skip physical therapy, your joint will get stiff, which makes it more and more painful to use it. Which will eventually cause you to be unable to use the joint at all or to apply force to it.
- Therapeutic injections: cortisone shots will help relieve short-term pain and inflammation in your joints. Another injection, which is a good option as you struggle with arthritis in your knee, is, viscosupplemention. This will treat the pain and help your joints move smoothly.
- Surgery: this involves fusing two or more bones together or replacing a joint, like a knee or hip replacement, because the original is too badly damaged. Don’t panic yet, your healthcare provider will only recommend surgery for severe cases. They will always treat the symptoms first, if this is really no longer possible, surgery will really be necessary.
Lifestyle changes
Unfortunately, there is not yet a cure for all types of arthritis, but as you can read, there are many great ways to treat the symptoms and live “pain free.” Of course, changing your lifestyle, thinking of enough sleep, drinking enough water, quitting smoking & drinking, changing your diet, and taking vitamins will help you live a better life if you suffer from this disease. It is always a good idea to do your own (online) research. We love to help you with this, so start your search here:
