Osteoarthritis affects millions all around the world. In America alone, over 27 million people live with this condition.
With how common osteoarthritis is, many myths and misconceptions have understandably cropped up. In order to truly understand this disease and how to deal with it, we need to correct this misinformation. In this blog, we’ll be rounding up some common myths about osteoarthritis and telling you the real facts!
Myth #1: Aches become more likely the more you use your joints.
Joint pain is not directly related to how often you use your joints. If you feel pain, avoiding all physical activity is actually the opposite of what you should do—which leads us to fact number one!
Fact #1: Muscle strengthening can help with pain caused by osteoarthritis.
Engaging in regular exercise can help you alleviate pain, maintain your physique, retain your range of motion, and strengthen your joints. Growing the muscles around your joints can help stabilize them and provide additional security.
Remember that you don’t have to do anything extreme. Low-impact activities, such as walking or swimming, or even simple exercises with household objects like water bottles can help maintain healthy joints for a long time.
Myth #2: You can’t prevent osteoarthritis.
There are a lot of factors that can increase a person’s likelihood of getting osteoarthritis at any point in their life. These factors include age, injuries sustained throughout the years, or even genetics.
However, that doesn’t mean osteoarthritis is a given. There are precautions you can take to lower your chances of developing this condition. Maintaining an active lifestyle is still one of the best ways to do so. And in the event that you already have osteoarthritis, you can slow down its progression by avoiding injury, and continuing to stay active, and strengthening your joints and muscles.
Fact #2: Shaving off a few extra pounds can help with osteoarthritis symptoms.
Part of living healthier includes watching your weight! In fact, in people who are overweight, burning just 10% of their current body weight can reduce the pain caused by osteoarthritis by a whopping 50%!
For every pound of body weight that you lose, you lessen the pressure on your knees by 4 pounds. Shedding fat can also help reduce swelling in non-weight-bearing joints because excess fat cells can cause inflammation in the surrounding tissue.
Myth #3: Pain management is the only treatment for osteoarthritis.
This is absolutely false. While medications can provide short-term relief for aches and pains, first-line treatment of osteoarthritis may not always require the use of drugs.
Getting ample rest, losing weight, orthotics are just a few of the drug-free options for osteoarthritis treatment. These may even be preferable because they encourage you to live healthier and improve your lifestyle, rather than simply reducing pain.
Fact #3: Osteoarthritis can have a toll on your mental health.
Osteoarthritis is associated with the development of anxiety, or mood disorders like depression.
Why? Because when this disease starts to prevent you from doing a lot of the things you love to do, it negatively affects your quality of life and can worsen your mental state. Lifestyle changes and risk management for osteoarthritis, especially in older generations, can help mitigate the mental and emotional effects of living with osteoarthritis.
What Now?
We’ve mentioned that there are many ways to treat osteoarthritis. Pain medication, for one, can help with acute symptoms but is best used as a complement to other treatments. Lifestyle changes, weight loss, and physical therapy are just some of the ways you can treat this disease naturally.
But now that we’ve gone over what you should know about osteoarthritis, as well as some existing treatments, we’ll discuss one more treatment method that is just as effective.
At Coastal Regen, we’ve developed our proprietary, FDA-approved HyalRegen-CT method as a complete solution for those suffering from knee arthritis. In this procedure, we inject cushioning fluid back into the knee using precision imaging so we disturb the surrounding tissues as little as possible. The injections work like using oil to loosen up a squeaky hinge, but more importantly, they can help stimulate your knee to produce more of its natural fluid in the long term.
If you’re currently seeking treatment for osteoarthritis, don’t hesitate to schedule an appointment with us on our website!