What are the arthritis care issues?

Most of the arthritis care issues focus on the public's misunderstandings. The highest pitfalls are mainly caused by inaccurate exercise standards, extreme ways of keeping warm, irregular medication, and lax management of the remission period. Many people have either taken care of it or had it done, which in turn aggravates joint damage.

Don't tell me, I have seen a lot of this kind of extreme situation when I went to community free clinics. Aunt Zhang, who lives in Building 3, was diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis last year. She didn't dare to get out of bed after the pain for two days. She sat on the sofa every day and even asked her husband to buy groceries. As a result, in three months, her thigh muscles lost a lot of weight, and her walking became softer, and her joint pain became more frequent.； Aunt Li from the same neighborhood was just the opposite. She heard people say that arthritis needs to be "struck away" and it would be cured. She climbed twenty floors every morning and evening, and also followed the video to do squat exercises. Within half a month, the swelling became so swollen that she couldn't walk. It took nearly 20 milliliters of fluid to get better. Nowadays, academic circles have different tendencies on the scale of exercise in the acute stage of arthritis. Some orthopedic doctors are more conservative and recommend complete immobilization to avoid joint friction in the acute stage. Most doctors in the rehabilitation department prefer to do early non-load-bearing muscle contraction training to prevent joints from losing stability after muscle atrophy and making them more susceptible to damage. In fact, to put it bluntly, joints are like bearings with lubricants. They are prone to wear and tear when running at full load every day. If left immobile for too long, the lubricant will condense and the lubricants will get stuck. Which one you choose depends on your tolerance.

In addition to the difficulty in grasping the scale of exercise, people's understanding of keeping warm is also very easy to go to extremes. Many people think that arthritis is a disease "from the cold." They wear fleece knee pads during the dog days of summer, and even cover their knees with thick blankets when the air conditioner is turned on at 28 degrees. As a result, many people develop eczema around their knees. The hot flash environment makes the soft tissues around the joints even more sore and swollen. In fact, what you need to keep warm is to avoid sudden cold, sudden heat and direct cold wind. For example, wear knee pads to block the cold wind when going out in winter. In summer, just don’t let the cold wind blow against your knees in an air-conditioned room. There is no need to wrap yourself up tightly at normal room temperature.

Another easy pitfall is to use medicine too casually. Either you only think of taking painkillers when you are in unbearable pain, and you stop taking them immediately when you get some relief. Or you follow the trend of taking the popular health-care products such as aminoglycosides and chondroitin, and you consult a doctor after taking them for more than half a year without any effect. Last time I met a patient with rheumatoid arthritis in the outpatient clinic. When he felt pain, he bought ibuprofen and took it. After taking it for more than half a year, his joints were still deformed. This was because he did not take appropriate anti-rheumatic drugs. Relying on painkillers alone could not stop the progression of the disease. And even for the commonly consumed ammonia sugar, the current academic conclusions are not unanimous. Some clinical data show that it has a certain relieving effect on patients with mild osteoarthritis, while other studies believe that its effect is not significantly different from that of a placebo. It is basically useless for moderate to severe patients. It is not a "miracle drug for arthritis" at all.

The most easily overlooked thing is actually the management of the remission period. Many people think that joints are fine if they don't hurt. They should eat and drink as they should. They don't care if they gain more than ten kilograms in weight. Patients with gouty arthritis just eat seafood and beer when they no longer have pain. In fact, for every kilogram of weight gain, the pressure on the knee joints when walking increases by three or four kilograms. When uric acid is high, it is like small stones that sink into the joints. Can the joints not hurt if they are rubbed every day? Last week, there was a young man in his 20s who suffered from gout four times in half a year. Every time he had pain, he had to eat very carefully. When the pain stopped, he would go out for supper and beer with friends. This time he came to check that small tophi had grown in his joints. If it continues, he would need surgery to remove it.

In fact, there is no one-size-fits-all standard for arthritis care. Everyone’s condition is different in type and severity. Someone else’s easy-to-use method may be a trap for you. When you are really unsure, asking a specialist is much more reliable than guessing on your own.