Do you feel stiff and sore after exercising? Do your knees or wrists ache after a long day at work? If so, you’re not alone. Many people experience similar joint pain, especially as they get older. Fortunately, plenty of natural remedies can help reduce discomfort and ease the pain associated with itchy joints. Here are some of the best natural remedies for reducing joint discomfort.
Joints are where two or more bones meet and are primarily mobile, allowing the bones to move. Joints consist of cartilage, a type of tissue that covers bones’ surface where they meet. Joint pain, especially as you age, is widespread, resulting from osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, gout, strains, sprains, or other injuries.
Joint discomfort alone can easily be managed with rest and simple stretching. It is accompanied by pain that can be treated with the following remedies:
- Protect the joint with a brace or wrap.
- Rest the joint, avoiding any activities that cause you pain.
- Ice the joint for about 15 minutes, several times each day.
- Compress the common using an elastic wrap.
- Elevate the joint above the level of your heart.
Applying ice to your painful joints can decrease the pain and inflammation. For muscle spasms around joints, try using a heating pad or wrap several times a day. Your doctor may recommend that you tape or splint the joint to minimize movement or reduce pain, but avoid keeping the common still for too long because it can eventually become stiff and lose function.
In the event of excruciating pain, usually, the first line of treatment is pain-relieving medication. However, this is not generally encouraged for prolonged use due to some untoward effects. In this regard, natural remedies can be crucial in pain management. This includes the following:
1. Weight management
If you are suffering from arthritis, bursitis, or just recently sustained an injury to your joint, your weight can significantly amplify your symptoms. Extra weight puts more pressure on your joints, mainly your knees, hips, and feet.
Reducing the stress on your joints by losing weight can help:
- Improve your mobility
- Decrease pain
- Prevent future damage to your joints
2. Do exercise in a routine
If you have arthritis, exercise can help you:
- Manage your weight
- Keep your joints flexible
- Strengthen the muscles around your joints, providing more support
Starting an exercise program is beneficial, especially one prescribed to you by your doctor. Training with a physiotherapist or personal trainer is also recommended, as it increases your motivation and ensures that you are doing suitable exercises with good form. The training aims to strengthen the muscles around the joint, stabilize the joint, and improve your range of motion. Swimming and bicycling are among the best exercises for joint pain or discomfort because both allow you to exercise your joints without undue stress or impact.
Swimming is often recommended for those suffering from joint pain because it offers good conditioning and strengthening without causing stress to your joints. Here are just some of the reasons why:
Buoyancy
One of the many advantages of exercising in water is that the diminished weight-bearing stress helps strengthen weak muscles and improve balance and confidence. Buoyancy counteracts gravity, decreasing the weight on painful joints and the spine. When immersed to neck level, buoyancy supports 90 percent of your body’s weight, and in waist-depth water, buoyancy can keep 50 percent of your body weight.
Hydrostatic Pressure
Water can provide up to 15x more resistance than air. It provides a very safe, accommodating resistance, which means that the harder you push against the water, the more resistance you will get. This drag resistance can help build muscle strength and endurance throughout your body.
Temperature
Everybody knows how great it feels to soak in a warm, soothing bath. For someone who suffers from chronic pain, warm water can be incredibly soft. Colder water tends to cause muscles to tense up. Experts say if people with arthritis spent more time in warm water, they’d be able to move better with less pain.
3. Use hot and cold therapy
Heat and cold treatments can help relieve arthritis pain and inflammation.
Heat treatments can include taking a long, warm shower or bath in the morning to help ease stiffness and using an electric blanket or moist heating pad to reduce discomfort overnight.
Cold treatments can help relieve joint pain, swelling, and inflammation. Wrap a gel ice pack or a bag of frozen vegetables in a towel and apply it to painful joints for quick relief. Never apply ice directly to the skin.
Capsaicin, which comes from chili peppers, is a component of some topical ointments and creams that you can buy over the counter. These products provide warmth that can soothe joint pain.
4. Use meditation to cope with pain
Meditation and relaxation techniques may help reduce the pain of arthritis by lowering stress and enabling you to cope better. Reducing stress may also help lower inflammation and pain.
Tai Chi and Yoga are some of the best practices that help promote relaxation and good breathing.
5. Get a massage
Massage can provide an overall sense of well-being. It may also help manage joint pain and discomfort.
6. Add Turmeric to dishes
Turmeric, the yellow spice common in Indian dishes, contains a chemical called curcumin. It has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Research suggests it may help reduce pain and inflammation, especially pain secondary to arthritis and bursitis.
More research is needed to show how turmeric works, but adding a small amount of this mild but tasty spice to your dinner is likely to be a safe option. Turmeric is also available as a dietary supplement.
7. Go Herbal
Many herbal supplements can reduce joint pain, although scientific research hasn’t confirmed that any specific herb or supplement could treat arthritis.
Some of these helpful herbs include:
- Boswellia
- Bromelain
- Devil’s claw
- Ginkgo
- Stinging nettle
- Thunder god vine
8. Joint Supplements
Several nutritional supplements relieve pain, stiffness, and other joint symptoms. Glucosamine, chondroitin, omega-3 fatty acids, SAM-e, and curcumin are just some natural products researchers have studied for osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
It’s important to note that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t regulate supplements and other herbal remedies. This means you can’t be sure of what a product contains or the effect it might have. It’s essential to read labels before trying any joint supplements. Also, talk with your doctor about the best joint supplement for your symptoms.
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