You’ve been diagnosed with arthritis or you have arthritis-like symptoms, namely joint pain and inflammation, and you want to do everything you can to preserve your quality of life. Since there’s no cure for arthritis, in all its many forms, management is key, which involves making some key lifestyle changes.
In the following, Dr. Scott Lafferty and the team here at Lafferty Family Care, outline a few factors that might be aggravating your arthritis.
Your diet plays a large role when it comes to arthritis, for better or for worse. For example, certain foods can lead to system-wide inflammation in your body, which can greatly exacerbate your arthritis.
Some of the primary culprits when it comes to inflammation include:
Outside of causing more inflammation, many of these foods also lead to weight gain, which places more pressure on your compromised joints and worsens your symptoms.
We understand that exercise and moving around with arthritic joints may be uncomfortable, but remaining sedentary when you have joint inflammation is a recipe for worsening arthritis.
Your joints are designed to move and, when you do, you encourage the flow of healing resources to your joints, which reduces inflammation and prevents stiffness.
We promise that the initial discomfort will lessen as you move around, and you’ll also strengthen muscles around your joints that can take on much of the workload.
On the other end of the spectrum are those who ignore the fact that their joints just aren’t what they used to be and push through the pain. When you have arthritis, we encourage you to remain active, but when your joints object by sending moderate-to-severe pain signals, it’s time to give them a rest.
If you push your joints too far, you can accelerate the damage.
If you’re not drinking enough water, you may be aggravating your arthritis, as your body’s resources aren’t flowing as freely. Be sure to drink enough water each day so that you can encourage better joint health.
It’s tempting to just cave to your arthritis and become angry at your body for failing you. We urge you to reframe the problem: Your body has served you very well, and it just needs a little extra TLC moving forward.
When we come up with a treatment plan for your arthritis, it’s designed to slow the degeneration in your joints and improve your quality of life. Medications and assistive devices shouldn’t be considered cop outs, but as tools that help you stay as healthy and active as possible.
For more information about managing your arthritis and what you should and shouldn’t do, contact our office in Bentonville, Arkansas, to set up an appointment.
