Learn More About How To Prevent Arthritis Naturally
Are you looking for ways to improve your overall health, including arthritis prevention or care, without compromising your desire for natural solutions? My website is a terrific source of inspiration and information. You can also book an appointment for a Health Care Evaluation where we can discuss your health further.
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are based on the opinions of Dr. Nathalie Beauchamp and the Santé Chiropractic Team, unless otherwise indicated. Information on this website is not intended as medical advice. It should not replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional. This website is meant to share knowledge and information researched and experienced by Dr. Nathalie and her team. The Santé Chiropractic Team encourages you to make your own health care decisions based on your own research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Causes Of Arthritis In The Hands
Arthritic conditions can cause pain, stiffness, swelling, and tenderness in the small joints of the hands and fingers.
Inflammatory arthritis conditions, like RA, psoriatic arthritis, gout, and ankylosing spondylitis cause inflammation. Symptoms of inflammation include redness, warmth, swelling, and pain. In general, OA is degenerative, rather than inflammatory.
Does Arthritis Affect Women More Often Than Men
Arthritis does affect women more frequently than men. More than 46 million Americans are living with arthritis, and 61 percent of them are women. That means about 28 million women are affected by arthritis in the United States.
Rheumatoid Arthritis affects more women than men in the United States. Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center says RA is two to three more times prevalent in women compared to men. Researchers believe hormonal differences between women and men may explain part of the reason.
The good news is there are some steps women can take to try to prevent osteoarthritis. They include:
- Lose weight to reduce pressure being put on knee and hip joints
- Do low-impact exercises to avoid wearing down the cartilage in joints
- Leave high heels in the closet to avoid the pressure they put on ankle joints
- When lifting objects, lift with your legs instead of your back to relieve stress on joints
- Maintain adequate levels of Vitamin D to slow the progression of arthritis
- Stay hydrated to keep cartilage lubricated and functioning smoothly
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Do Simple Tasks Hands
Ask Your Veterinarian About Dog Joint Supplements
While theres no current data supporting the use of supplements to prevent arthritis in dogs, they do play a role in supporting the joints.
Joint supplements with glucosamine and chondroitin can help slow the loss of cartilage and keep your pet comfortable longer, says Dr. Ennis. Omega-3 fatty acids such as EPA and DHA found in fish oil are powerful antioxidants. They will help scavenge free radicals, reducing toxic damage and fight inflammation in the body, she says.
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How To Prevent Progression Of Arthritis
Osteoarthritis, commonly referred to as wear-and-tear arthritis, is the most common form of arthritis, affecting over 30 million Americans.
Persons diagnosed with osteoarthritis often worry about the progressive nature of the disease and wonder if they will one day end up needing joint replacement surgery. By making changes in your life, however, you may be able to avoid this outcome. Here are four fixes that can help.
Learn New Cooking Skills
Whether you love to cook or not, chances are you at least stir sauce or chop veggies from time to time. Even these sous chef efforts benefit from joint protection to prevent arthritis hand pain. For example, instead of stirring the sauce with your thumb and finger wrapped around the handle, hold your thumb on top of the utensil like you were holding an ice pick and stabbing ice and stir using shoulder motion. This method takes pressure off the joints and utilizes your shoulder to stir the sauce. Dodge suggests using kitchen tools with large handles and electric appliances, such as a can and jar openers and food processors. Check out more kitchen hacks for easier meal prep.
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Lifestyle And Diet Changes
One of the major causes of neck arthritis is leading a sedentary lifestyle. The surge of technology and gadgets has made things worse for this generation. This study claims that prolonged computer use can adversely affect the neck leading to serious issues as one gets aged.
Making lifestyle changes and leading an active life with exercises such as swimming, aerobics etc. can help to prevent neck arthritis.
Also adopting a plant-based diet, consumption of probiotic foods such as Kimchi, yogurt & cottage cheese, and including dietary fiber such as broccoli, brown rice, sprouts etc. can reduce inflammation and flares to a significant extent.
No : Avoid Injuries Or Get Them Treated
Suffering a joint injury when you are young predisposes you to osteoarthritis in the same joint when you are older. Injuring a joint as an adult may put the joint at even greater risk. A long-term study of 1,321 graduates of Johns Hopkins Medical School found that people who injured a knee in adolescence or young adulthood were three times more likely to develop osteoarthritis in that knee, compared those who had not suffered an injury. People who injured their knee as an adult had a five times greater risk of osteoarthritis in the joint.
To avoid joint injuries when exercising or playing sports, the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases recommends the following:
- Avoid bending knees past 90 degrees when doing half knee bends.
- Keep feet as flat as possible during stretches to avoid twisting knees.
- When jumping, land with knees bent.
- Do warm-up exercises before sports, even less vigorous ones such as golf.
- Cool down after vigorous sports.
- Wear properly fitting shoes that provide shock absorption and stability.
- Exercise on the softest surface available avoid running on asphalt and concrete.
If you have a joint injury, it’s important to get prompt medical treatment and take steps to avoid further damage, such as modifying high-impact movements or using a brace to stabilize the joint.
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Can You Prevent Arthritis
Youve witnessed your grandma or mom dealing with the pain of arthritis. Now youre crossing your fingers, hoping youve missed the genetic lotto that doles out inherited diseases like arthritis. The good news is, its not just genetics that influence your chances of developing arthritis: your lifestyle plays a role as well. That means you can actually reduce your chances of getting this debilitating disease by making lifestyle changes today.
Many of the lifestyle changes that can help reduce your chances of developing arthritis also have other health benefits.
Stop Eating An Unhealthy Diet
What’s your diet got to do with arthritis? Eating well and maintaining your ideal weight is especially important if you’ve got arthritis. Excess pounds can put lots of stress on weight-bearing joints, which is likely to make arthritis pain worse. Even moderate weight gain can stress joints that are already burdened by arthritis.
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What Foods Help Prevent Arthritis
There is no dietary cure for arthritis. Establishing healthy habits are your best bets for trying to prevent the disease. Maintaining a healthy diet is an important part of the plan. Try to eat foods that fight inflammation in our bodies and strengthen our bones.
The United States Department of Agriculture suggests eating fish that contain a lot of omega-3 fatty acids. These include salmon, trout, mackerel and sardines. The Arthritis Foundation recommends eating these fish two or more times a week to reduce inflammation.
The Arthritis Foundation says berries provide arthritis-fighting power. It recommends eating:
- Blueberries
- Cranberries
- Raspberries
The Arthritis Foundation also suggests eating pomegranate fruit because the tannins inside also minimize inflammation in our bodies.
Eating vegetables that lead to less inflammation can also help. Try adding regular servings of broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and mushrooms to your diet. Leave the vegetable or corn oil in the pantry and instead use olive oil and canola oil. They both contain omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
What Are The Symptoms Of Arthritis
The symptoms of your arthritis will vary widely depending on which type of arthritis you have. The patterns will likely be quite different, as will the location and the severity of the pain and the other symptoms that may accompany the pain.
Despite the great potential for diversity in symptoms, however, there are four main symptoms present in almost every variety of arthritis.
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See A Doctor If Youre Feeling Pain Or Stiffness
Make Sure To Exercise
Along with helping you to maintain a healthy weight, exercise is also good for keeping muscles and joints healthy, Dr. Kaplan says.
“Any kind of exercise that doesn’t strain muscles is good,” he says, and cautions people to start gradually especially if it’s been a while since you’ve been active and build up to a higher tolerance and endurance.
Tip
Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week, per the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.
The stronger your muscles, the better they’re able to protect your joints and potentially prevent osteoarthritis, per University of Iowa Health Care. Plus, physical activity helps prevent stiffness in your joints, according to the University of Rochester Medical Center.
“In general, I recommend range-of-motion exercises things that keep the joints moving, like walking, swimming, bicycling,” Dr. Kaplan says.
Related Reading
OA is mainly thought of as a disease that accompanies age with a lot of use of the joint, cartilage wears down, leading to friction and the dreaded bone-on-bone contact.
But OA can also be the result of an injury caused by physical activity or accidents, per the Mayo Clinic.
Of course, you can’t retreat to a bubble to avoid injuries and accidents. But there are reasonable and prudent tactics you can take to protect your joints:
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Give Hand Injuries Time To Fully Heal
Avoid High Impact Exercise
Avoid exercises such as running, plyometrics, and contact sports. Instead, try biking, walking, swimming, or low impact options on exercise videos to protect your joints. Sticking to low impact exercises can also help you prevent major injuries such as a ligament tear, which can contribute to arthritis.
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Preventing And Treating Osteoarthritis
If, in the case of injury, you fix the damaged cartilage early, you can prevent arthritis. If you already have arthritis, we have developed natural ways to help the body regenerate its own cartilage and heal the affected bones to reverse the symptoms of arthritis.
We have spent 25 years designing and refining new ways to treat arthritis. Using natural, biologic materials, treatments are less invasive and less expensive than joint replacement with metals, the present standard of care. Our goal is to figure out how our body responds to an injury and then stimulate that response, making it faster and more directed.
More Tips For Your Hands
Moving your hands and fingers can help keep your ligaments and tendons flexible and increase the function of synovial fluid. Try regular hand exercises to strengthen muscles and relieve stiffness and pain. Simple exercises like flexing and bending, finger touching, and finger sliding may help keep your fingers limber.
Staying physically active while at the same time taking extra precautions against injury is vital not only for preventing arthritis, but also for your overall physical health.
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Wear A Brace Or Splint
This can be cumbersome when youre going about your day, but the support and pain relief it brings can be significant for some people. But a brace or splint is not useful is the fit is off or if its not the right type for your specific needs. I usually recommend neoprene orthosis for daytime to support a wrist or thumb, and if needed thermoplastic , which are rigid and meant to limit motion at night if pain interferes with sleep, says Dodge. Be sure to check in with your occupational therapist before ordering one on your own.
Risk Factor Modification And Ra Prevention
As discussed above, multiple environmental and lifestyle-based risk factors for RA have been identified, and modifying these to prevent RA is an attractive approach, especially given the potential toxicities of pharmacologic interventions. For example, exposure to tobacco smoke is strongly associated with RA, with some estimates that it explains 30% of the risk for seropositive RA. Based on this, some have proposed that broadly-implemented programs for smoking cessation would result in a significant reduction of RA. In addition, recent attention has focused on the potential role of periodontal inflammation and infection with the organism Porphyromonas gingivalis in the pathogenesis of RA. If this relationship is truly causal, perhaps treatment of periodontal disease/infection may result in reduced risk for future RA.
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Preventing Arthritis In Your Hands
Some risk factors for arthritis are not modifiablesuch as aging and family history. But there are also risk factors within your control. You can reduce your risk for arthritis conditions by managing those. You will also want to take preventive measures to reduce the risk of your existing arthritis condition affecting your hands.
Start A Nutritionally Sound Diet Early
A puppys joints and skeletal system benefit from a slower rate of growth through nutritionally complete diets, says Dr. Morrison. Some developmental orthopedic diseases may be exacerbated by growth that happens too rapidly, so a slow, steady growth rate is recommended.
According to Dr. Elizabeth Knabe, a veterinarian with Wildwood Animal Hospital and Clinic in Marshfield, Wisconsin, Owners that feed too much or feed too rich a diet can make the puppy gain weight faster than the bones can handle, which can lead to orthopedic problems that can result in arthritis.
By feeding your puppy a dog food specifically designed for him, you can help keep your puppys development on the right track. For example, Hill’s Science Diet puppy healthy development dry dog food is a complete and balanced diet that is formulated for supporting proper puppy growth.
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Take Control Of Your Health
Arthritis isnt an entirely preventable disease. Some of us are always going to be more susceptible to it than others. We may have a genetic pre-disposition, we may have to work at a desk all day, or we may simply be getting older.
Dont let this discourage you. There are so many ways you can take control of your own health and take steps to relieving your arthritis symptoms.
Maybe you havent developed arthritis yet, and maybe you never will. But these are still great tips and great measures you can take to keep your body healthy and functioning properly.
Eating well, exercising regularly, avoiding injury and visiting your doctor are all great ideas regardless of whether or not you think you might be developing arthritis. By following these steps, youll soon be well on your way to a healthier you.