Living with arthritis isn't easy and carrying out simple, everyday tasks can often be painful and difficult.
However, there are many things you can do to make sure you live a healthy lifestyle. A range of services and benefits are also available.
Work
Many people with arthritis want to continue working for many reasons, including better financial security and higher self-esteem.
Improved treatment approaches have helped ensure that many people who are diagnosed with arthritis can return to work. This is particularly the case if arthritis is diagnosed and treated at an early stage.
You may find work challenging, but your employer should help you with the training and support you need.
Help is also available if your arthritis is so severe that you're unable to work. Find out more about the Personal Independence Payment (formerly known as the Disability Living Allowance).
The Arthritis Care website also has more useful information about working with arthritis.
Healthy eating
It's very important to eat a healthy, balanced diet if you have arthritis. Eating healthily will give you all the nutrients you need and help you maintain a healthy weight.
Your diet should consist of a variety of foods from all five food groups. These are:
- fruit and vegetables
- Starchy foods– such as bread, rice, potatoes and pasta
- Meat, fish, eggs and beans
- milk and dairy foods
- foods containing fat and sugar
If you're overweight, losing weight can help considerably.Too much weight places excess pressure on the joints in your hips, knees, ankles and feet, leading to increased pain and mobility problems.
Exercise
If your arthritis is painful, you may not feel like exercising. However, being active can help reduce and prevent pain. Regular exercise can also:
- improve your range of movement and joint mobility
- increase muscle strength
- reduce stiffness
- boost your energy
As long as you do the right type and level of exercise for your condition, your arthritis won't get any worse. Combined with a healthy, balanced diet (see above), regular exercise will help you lose weight and place less strain on your joints.
Your GP can advise about the type and level of exercise that's right for you. Arthritis Care also produce a number of useful booklets, including Exercise and arthritis (PDF, 5Mb) and Pain and arthritis (PDF, 1.7Mb).
Joint care
If you have arthritis, it's important to look after your joints so that there is no further damage. For example, try to reduce the stress on your joints while carrying out everyday tasks like moving and lifting.
Some tips for protecting your joints, particularly if you have arthritis, include:
- use larger, stronger joints as levers – for example, take the pressure of opening a heavy door on your shoulder rather than on your hand
- use several joints to spread the weight of an object – for example, use both hands to carry your shopping or distribute the weight evenly in a shoulder bag or rucksack
- don't grip too tightly – grip as loosely as possible or use a padded handle to widen your grip
The Arthritis Care website has more information and advice about taking care of your joints.
It's also important to avoid sitting in the same position for long periods of time and to take regular breaks so you can move around.
At home
If you have arthritis, carrying out tasks around the home can be a challenge. However, making some practical changes to your home and changing the way you work should make things easier.
Practical tips that could help include:
- keeping things in easy reach
- using a hand rail to help you get up and down the stairs
- using long-handled tools to pick things up or to clean
- fitting levers to taps to make them easier to turn
- using electric kitchen equipment, such as tin openers, when preparing food
You can find more useful information and advice about living independently at home on the Arthritis Care website.
Occupational therapy
An occupational therapist can help if you have severe arthritis that's affecting your ability to move around your home and carry out everyday tasks, such as cooking and cleaning.
They can advise about equipment you may need to help you live independently.
Depending on the exact nature of your condition, your GP may be able to refer you to an NHS occupational therapist. However, you may need to access this type of therapy through your local council.
How Music Can Help
Music is like exercise. What you do for exercise doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you do it. And what you listen to doesn’t matter, as long as you listen.
Music can decrease the pain, depression and disability that commonly occur among people with osteoarthritis, (OA), rheumatoid arthritis, (RA) and other noncancerous types of chronic pain, according to research conducted at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio and reported in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.
People who listened to music for one hour a day for one week – whether they picked the tunes themselves or researchers provided them – felt more empowered and reported less pain, depression and disability than those who did not listen to music. Average pain ratings among people who listened to music fell by about 20 percent, whereas pain among nonlisteners actually increased.
Research published in the March 2012 issue of Clinical Rheumatology further points to the therapeutic benefits of music. Study researchers assessed the impact of recorded music on patients undergoing joint lavage for knee osteoarthritis. They found that those who listened to music during the procedure had less pain and anxiety and lower heart rates that those who did not.
Don't have your IPod or radio handy? Try singing instead. Researchers reporting in the March 2011 issue of Arthritis Care & Research found that singing before joint replacement surgeryhelped calm a patient and ease her blood pressure prior to the operation.
How Classical Music Can Help
Can classical music soothe aching limbs and decrease your stress? “Yes!” sing researchers and music therapists alike. By listening to slow-tempo classical music, pain from chronic osteoarthritis may ease, a recent study indicates. Researchers at the Florida Atlantic University College of Nursing, Boca Raton, found that participants’ pain levels decreased because they were distracted by the music. Stress levels did, too. Music therapists have also found that heart muscles synchronize to the beat of music, as does breathing. When classical music rhythms mimic the average resting heart – approximately 70 beats per minute – the soothing sounds actually helped to slow fast-beating hearts.
“Music has a lot of power,” says Joanne Loewy, PhD, director of music therapy for Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Loewy uses music to slow patients’ breathing and promote relaxation.
But all music is not created equal. Faster compositions stimulate the heart rate, and some can actually rev up the nervous system. When listening to this kind of music, pain may actually feel more acute. Steven Halpern, PhD, a composer of music for healing and relaxation, offers tips for finding a classical regimen that can decrease your stress level and keep your mind off your pain:
Pay attention to your breathing and heart rate. If your breathing slows down while you’re listening to a selection, you are being soothed by the music; stress will melt away. On the flip side, if your heart is racing after a selection, save that music for your exercise routine.
Make your own music compilations. Store-bought classical compilations often mix rousing, booming pieces with slower, more relaxing ones, causing you to feel relaxed one minute and worked up the next. Find a compilation designed with relaxation in mind, or create your own mixed tape of slow favorites.
If classical music isn’t your cup of tea, try jazz or new age genres. Although classical music is a favorite among researchers, Loewy says any type of music that makes a person feel good when listening to it can be effective. Turn to the tunes that suit you.
"The Most Relaxing Classical Music in the Universe" with Pachelbel, Mozart and others (Denon Records)
"Music for Sound Healing" (Halpern, Inner Peace Music)
"Meditation: Classical Relaxation" Albinoni, Bach and others (Denon Records)
Your Brain's Response to Pain
Your brain responds to the music you hear, says osteopathic physician Steven Stanos, medical director, Chronic Pain Care Center at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
“We think music stimulates areas of the brain that are responsible for releasing the body’s own painkillers,” he says. “Music stimulates the periaqueductal gray (PAG) area in the mid-brain, which is where we have our own opioid system.”
Imaging studies have shown that music can stimulate the brain’s pleasure center, increasing levels of the brain chemicals dopamine, which produces feelings of enjoyment, and substance P, which inhibits pain. And there is evidence from brain scans that music can block the area of the brain called the amygdala that is responsible for negative emotions such as stress, says Dr. Stanos.
There is no reason not to take time to listen to music. “It is distracting, pleasurable and has no side effects,” Dr. Stanos says. “People can use it to self-medicate just like they do with deep breathing or relaxation.
How The Weather Affects Arthritis
It’s not your imagination; the weather can cloud your health. Here’s what research reveals about the connection between weather and arthritis pain.
Changes in temperature or barometric pressure, a measure that refers to the weight of the surrounding air, trigger joint pain, though researchers aren’t entirely sure why. In 2007, researchers at Tufts University in Boston reported that every 10-degree drop in temperature corresponded with an incremental increase in arthritis pain. Increasing barometric pressure was also a pain trigger in the Tufts study.
In fact, studies in cadavers have found that barometric pressure affects pressure inside the joints. In one experiment, when pressure in the hip joints was equated with atmospheric pressure, it threw the ball of the hip joint about one-third of an inch off track.
How Laughter Can Help Arthritis
Where there's laughter, pain usually subsides. Sharing a good chuckle with a loved one or co-worker not only feels good, it is good for you. Studies have shown that laughing boosts your immune system, reduces stress and stimulates blood circulation. And that's where a new form of laughter therapy comes in.
Let’s face it, though: Most adults don’t experience much spontaneous laughter on a daily basis. So a growing number of people are turning to hasya yoga, a form of laughter therapy, to “fake it until they make it.”
Hasya, or laughter yoga, began in 1995 with an Indian medical doctor named Madan Kataria. The unusual discipline, which uses playful activities and guided breathing exercises to trigger laughter, since has spread to more than 50 countries, with about 200 clubs in the U.S. alone.
For people with chronic pain, laughter’s physiological benefits can serve as a powerful form of pain management, says Sebastien Gendry, director of the American School of Laughter Yoga in Pasadena, Calif. “When you laugh, you release endorphins. Those are feel-good hormones, as well as natural painkillers,” Gendry says.
Janet Wilson, a registered nurse in Flagstaff, Ariz., who has fibromyalgia, became a certified laughter leader in 2005 after learning about the World Laughter Tour. Wilson now runs laughter clubs in Flagstaff. “I have had chronic pain for 12 years. I love leading laughter sessions because it elevates my mood and provides pain relief that lasts for about two hours,” she says.
To try a taste of laughter yoga, Gendry suggests pretending to take a “laughter pill,” building from a simulated giggle to a belly-shaking guffaw as soon as it “hits” your tongue.
Or consider joining a laughter club. Because laughter is contagious, enjoying a few rounds of pretend chortling with others may inspire a serious fit of the actual giggles.
What I've realised from being in constant pain is we are not alone, there are many more people out there who suffer from pain, but there are also lots of help, the amount of aids/gadgets now available for people with arthritis is amazing, from help with peeling the veg to driving your car. Just visiting the foundation gives you lots of practical and moral support so check it out, and keep positive, the pain never goes but your attitude towards will change.
No comments:
Post a Comment