5 Tips for Joint Pain Management

Focus on a healthy diet

There quite a few things that you can do to keep your joints healthy as you age. Optimizing your nutritional intake is one of the biggest factors of how to improve joint health naturally. This can involve general health guidelines, but more importantly it involves determining how different foods affect you.

Personalizing your diet will be the most beneficial for joint pain relief. An elimination diet by which you ascertain any food that you may be allergic to, or simply just do not react well may be in order. Eating the wrong types of food that your body does not like can negatively impact the health of your joints and lead to increased joint pain.

You may be amazed how the elimination of one food source that you have been consuming all your life without a problem can improve joint pain.

Be active and exercise

Staying active through exercise is one of the most important things that you can do to protect your joints as you get older. You will need to follow the advice of your doctor as to how much exercise is safe to perform if you are suffering from joint pain. But, in general remaining active is key.

This does not mean spending hours in the gym or taking up a new, intense training program. A daily walk or other gentle exercise such as yoga or Tai Chi is sufficient. The importance of activity involves the goal of keeping your joints lubricated by moving around the fluid with joints. This offers a natural protection to your joints.

Hot and cold therapy

Hot and/or cold therapy can go a long way in joint pain relief. The general advice that you will often receive is to use heat therapy before activity, and cold afterwards. But again, this is something that should be individualized.

You may find that when you are resting in the evening that placing a hot pack for 15 minutes on your knees helps pain. Perhaps the opposite, a cold pack provides greater pain relief. Some people find that alternating between heat and cold for 5 minutes each is very helpful. This is known as contrast therapy.
One of these methods is likely to decrease pain. Try them and determine which method works best for you.

Protect your joints

The objective with each of the modalities described above is to protect, nourish, and increase pain free function of joints. Paying attention to diet, exercise, and utilizing heat or cold will all help in providing protection for your joints and keep the functioning optimally and pain free.

Along with the above tips, it may be beneficial for to wear a brace on your joints for a period. The goal is to dimmish pain, so that you can remain active. The doctors at Dr. Burke Orthopedics can advise you on what is best for your joints, in a preventative fashion so that you can avoid serious complications.

Schedule a consultation with an expert- Dr. Burke Orthopedics

The orthopedists at Dr. Burke Orthopedics are experts at caring for your joints and can provide with the best guidance in keeping them healthy. You do not need to live with painful joints as you age. It is not a consequence of aging that you must accept. You can do something about it! Schedule a consultation with us to discuss the best methods of protecting your joints.