Natural Pain Relief for Osteoarthritis

One of the most painful and crippling autoimmune diseases to affect the joints, osteoarthritis is a condition that affects the articular cartilage and the subchondral bones. Symptoms of this disease include joint pain, tenderness, stiffness, locking and at times, effusion. There can be many different causes of osteoarthritis, like hereditary, developmental, metabolic etc. The basic pathophysiology of this condition lies in the fact that there is progressive loss of cartilage due to which the bone may be exposed and eventually damaged. Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis and is one of the leading causes of chronic disability in the United States, affecting nearly 27 million people. This is the reason why everyone is always trying to find natural pain relief for osteoarthritis, because as it is an autoimmune disease, there is no fixed cure for it. Rather than endlessly popping pain killers, it is better that people try out other measures to attain pain relief. Given below are a few natural measures to deal with osteoarthritis

Natural Remedies for Osteoarthritis

Massage Therapy
One of the most popular natural pain relief methods is massage therapy. This is done by massage therapists who use long, smooth strokes along with kneading and other movements focused on superficial layers of muscle while using massage oil or lotion. This helps to basically relieve muscle tension and pain, increase flexibility and mobility and help clear lactic acid and other accumulated waste in the body. All of this eventually leads to a reduction in pain and stiffness in muscles and joints of the body. Thus, massage can help to relieve muscle tension that is associated with osteoarthritis, thus, bringing about natural pain relief for osteoarthritis. Joint pain can lead to surrounding muscles and make them tense, which can lead to restricted movement.

One of the most important massage therapy benefits is that this also prevents muscle spasms in other parts of the body. As osteoarthritis is usually one-sided, this can make muscles elsewhere in the body tense as they try to compensate for the weakened joint. Massage boosts circulation in the affected joint, which decreases joint stiffness and also helps to promote cartilage repair. This is brought about by massaging the muscles surrounding the affected joint.

Yoga
Another easy way of natural pain relief, which is slowly gaining a lot of popularity as a potential tool for treating osteoarthritis, is yoga. Yoga is a safe and effective way of dealing with the pain associated with osteoarthritis. The movements of yoga increases the strength, flexibility and balance of a person. However, before you go in for yoga therapy to deal with osteoarthritis, it is best to ask your doctor so that he may guide you on what yoga exercises and yoga poses are best for you, according to your signs and symptoms.

Acupuncture
Another simple measure for natural pain relief is acupuncture. The World Health Organization has managed to single out forty different conditions that can be treated with the help of acupuncture. One of those diseases listed was osteoarthritis. This therapy involves the insertion of hair thin needles into specific points of the body, known as acupoints. One of the benefits of acupuncture is said that this helps to balance the flow of energy in the body. Certain studies have also reportedly shown that this helps in the release of natural pain relieving substances in the body, like endorphins and serotonin.

This was all about the measures that one can take to attain natural pain relief for osteoarthritis. Besides the above given measures, rather than taking pain killers, people can always try taking certain supplements, like chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine to help deal with the pain. The gravity of the situation which calls to resort to natural pain relief measures can be seen by looking at statistics related to osteoarthritis. Almost half the prescriptions for NSAIDs is for patients suffering from osteoarthritis. Thus, there is need for finding out ways by which a person can achieve natural pain relief for osteoarthritis. Although there is no fixed osteoarthritis treatment, one can always make a few changes in one's lifestyle to ensure that the person lives a long and relatively pain free life.