Natural Arthritis Treatment is being discussed in this article.Three pain savers The following three tips may help at least a little in lessening day-to-day discomfort, one physician reports in the medical journal Patient Care:
• Open bottle containers with the heel of the hand.
• Comb hair with a long*handled comb or brush to reduce shoulder motion.
• Hug shopping bags rather than carry them by the handles.
Relief with a blanket Sleeping under an electric blanket
A good source of therapeutic heat–can be helpful for arthritic and other aches. Hot-water bottles cool quickly;
heating pads on too high a setting may bum the skin. But an electric blanket can provide low, continuous heat to painful joints and muscles, resulting in less stiffness in the morning.
An ice bag for the arthritic knee
For the rheumatoid arthritis sufferer with painful knees, ice “ Baggie therapy” may offer significant relief. It calls for putting six ice cubes in a plastic bag to make an ice pack and placing the pack over and under the knee for twenty minutes, three times a day, for four weeks.
That led to marked pain relief and improvement in knee range of motion, strength, and sleep duration in a trial with twenty-four patients. The inexpensive therapy produced no undesirable effects and reduced the need for pain-relieving drugs. Curiously, too, even as one knee was being treated, pain relief occurred in the other as well, according to a report by Dr. Peter D. Utsinger of Germantown Medical Center, Philadelphia.
Stretch gloves for arthritic hands
At Albert Einstein Medical Center. Philadelphia, Dr. George E, Ehrlich, director of the Arthritic Clinic, observed that several women patients with hands affected by rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis wore stretch gloves. The gloves helped so much, they reported, that they were worn at night as well.
Wnen Ehrlich set up a trial with forty-four other patients, the gloves helped forty-one, reducing or eliminating morning pain, stiffness, and joint swelling, and increasing strength. AH this occurred within the first two days of wearing the gloves, with some patients reporting being able to sleep through the night for the first time in years. Both nylon-knit and Spandex-and-nylon gloves were effective; the latter were more comfortable for some patients.
Iron and arthritis
Iron supplements may worsen rheumatoid arthritis in some patients. British investigators found
that three of ten patients, after getting an iron dextran preparation by vein, developed acute joint inflammation. The
disease got worse, too, in three of ten others with early rheumatoid arthritis given oral iron sulphate. In the United
States, Dr. David G. Borenstein of George Washington University, Washington, L.C., studying the synovial, or joint,
fluid of fourteen patients with several types of arthritis, found that adding an iron compound to the fluid helped bac
teria there to grow. ‘When iron is absent,” he lcyorts, synovial fluid may do a better job of inhibiting bacterial
growth. Iron promotes the growth of the bacteria which can contribute to the inflammation associated with arthritis.
Best Medication About Arthritis Treatment
Exercise for arthritics
Even in moderate amounts, exercise can help. Using stationary bicyclcs, fourteen women
with rheumatoid arthritis took part in supervised exercise plans in a University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, study. Three
times a week, during a twelve-week study period, some exercised fifteen minutes per session, others twenty-five minutes, still others thirty-five minutes.
Even for those exercising the minimum time, there were improvements in exercise tolerance and functional status, according to Dr. Thomas Harkcom and other researchers. And, assessing themselves, the women reported an improvement in energy and an increased ability to carry out household and social activities.
Arthritis And food
Some rheumatoid arthritis patients have long believed that certain foods worsen their disease.
Some support for their belief comes from a very limited British study, involving only one woman. Seen by investi
gators at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London, the thirty-eight-year-old patient had suffered from progressive arthritis, unresponsive to treatment, for eleven years. She had a family history of rheumatoid arthritis and allergyand was allergic herself but had never noticed a worsening of arthritis after exposure to agents ?>he was known to be allergic to.
She did, however, love cheese, eating up to a pound a day. Despite lack of any clear history of allergy
after cheese consumption, when, in a trial, cheese, butter, and milk were eliminated from her diet, arthritis symptoms improved within three weeks. When milk products were reintroduced. her arthritis deteriorated within twenty-four hours. Suggest the investigators: In some cases, rheumatoid arthritis may be similar to diseases such as eczema and migraine, which can be allergic manifestations of food intolerance.
A copper bracelet for arthritis? Wearing a copper bracelet to ease the pain of arthritis has long been considered an
old wives* tale, but new scientific evidence is beginning to offer support. At the University of Akron, Ohio, Dr. Helmar Dollwet, associate professor of biology, has found that copper implants in rats’ legs reduce swelling. The cxact role of copper in joints is unknown, but the metal enters into the production of enzymes that participate in forming coilagen,
A material present in connective tissue.Observes Dr. Dollwet: “ I have never said, nor can I say
now, that a copper bracelet or a copper implant will cure arthritis. But as we dig deeper into the problem and our
efforts expand. I believe more strongly than eve – that the copper reduces the pain of this disease and makes life a little more bearable for its victims.”
