The disease of osteoarthritis (OA), one of various forms of arthritis, impacts the joints of your body. There are currently about 27 million people in the United States who are suffering from OA.
If you want to prevent osteoarthritis or its further development, it can be extraordinarily helpful to incorporate various lifestyle changes. Let’s quickly go over tips to reduce the pain, inflammation, and loss of mobility that often occur with OA. Then, we will discuss professional guidance to prevent osteoarthritis development and alleviate the pain if you are already suffering from it.
Here are four methods for prevention, so that you can quickly return to having better quality of life and fully performing the activities you enjoy:
Tip #1: Manage Your Weight
Having too many pounds on your body will often lead to osteoarthritis. The excess weight places strain on the weight-bearing joints (knees, hips, etc.). Incredibly, every pound that is added means an additional 4 pounds of pressure on your knees and 6 pounds of pressure on your knees, according to the nonprofit Arthritis Foundation.
Tip #2: Stay Physically Active
Low-impact exercise is critical for the health of your joints, including OA prevention. Aerobic exercise, strength conditioning, and stretching are all ways to keep your body in proper working order. Exercise helps osteoarthritis patients with joint maintenance, alleviation of stiffness, reduction in pain, and improvement in muscular strength.
Tip #3: Watch Your Blood Sugar
Diabetes is one of the most common reasons that osteoarthritis will occur, since its speeds up the production of molecules that contribute to mechanical stress sensitivity and the stiffening of cartilage. It also has been shown to lead to systemic inflammation and, in turn, loss of cartilage. Since diabetes impacts the body in this way, diabetes prevention is aided by controlling your blood sugar level.
Tip #4: Be Careful
A lot of OA prevention is about taking care of your body properly if you experience injury. After all, cartilage does not heal well – so if you injure a joint, (again per the Arthritis Foundation), it is 7 times likelier that you will develop this disease.
Bonus Tip: Professional Guidance for Osteoarthritis
Do you want to prevent osteoarthritis or relieve its symptoms? You may need additional treatment for your joints than you are able to achieve with the above methods. At OrthoGen, our mission is to lead modern pain treatments away from invasive surgeries and addictive opioids, and into the new frontier of stem cell therapies. See our osteoarthritis approach.