Arthritis can stop you in your tracks. Pain, stiffness, swelling, and limited range of motion can make it hard to work, do everyday chores, and enjoy your favorite hobbies. The symptoms of arthritis can range from mild to severe, and they may worsen over time. What’s more, there is no cure for this musculoskeletal disease – once the damage of arthritis has occurred, it cannot be repaired.
There is no sure way to prevent arthritis, but you can take steps to reduce your risk for developing joint disease or delay its onset.
5 Steps Toward Reducing Your Risk for Arthritis
1. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight
Carrying around extra pounds puts excess pressure on your weight-bearing joints, such as your hips and knees. In fact, every pound you gain packs on four additional pounds of stress to your knees and six times the pressure on your hips. This pressure causes stress and damage that can lead to changes associated with arthritis.
People who have higher body weight are up to 4.5 times more likely to develop osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee than are people of moderate weight. Obesity is associated with a higher risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis.
2. Get moving
Physical activity burns calories to help control your weight, which reduces pressure on your joints. Exercise also strengthens the muscles around your joints, and strong muscles helps stabilize and protect joints from the wear and tear that can lead to arthritis. The Arthritis Foundation recommends getting 150 minutes or more of moderate aerobic exercise each week; you can also do 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise weekly instead for the same benefits. For best results, add in muscle-strengthening exercises at least two days a week.
3. Avoid joint injuries
Sometimes joints don’t heal properly from an injury, such as a fracture or rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in your knee. Poor healing can cause the cartilage that covers and protects the ends of bones to deteriorate over time. This process may lead to joint pain and stiffness; in extreme cases, the cartilage breaks down enough to allow the bones to scrape against each other when you move the joint.
4. Control your blood sugar
There is a two-way relationship between arthritis and diabetes, which is a condition characterized by high blood sugar levels. In fact, 47 percent of American adults with diabetes also have arthritis, and people with arthritis have a 61 percent higher risk for developing diabetes.
Blood sugar may stiffen the tissue that supports your joints. It can also make the tissue more sensitive to stress.
5. Get routine preventive care
Your doctor may be able to suggest treatments or other lifestyle changes, such as eating fish twice a week and quitting smoking, which are known to help reduce the potential for damage to your joints.
If you start to experience symptoms of arthritis, see an orthopedic doctor. These physicians specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of bones, joints, ligaments, and tendons. Your orthopedic specialist can even recommend a wide variety of treatment options ranging from physical therapy to cartilage transplant. Your orthopedic specialist can even look at recent or past joint injuries to determine if any damage has occurred. If other measures to prevent and control joint damage from arthritis fail, your orthopedic surgeon may recommend joint replacement.
For more information, contact Huntington Orthopedics.