It is not easy to go on about your life when you are suffering from a disease that can cause immense pain in the joints and disrupt your daily routine. The pain and stiffness can make even the simplest of tasks impossible to perform. Anyone who is living with the disease would admit that their life got affected one way or the other. They had to lead a compromised life where their financial resources and relationships with friends and family were affected.
It is not a piece of cake to live with arthritis but so much can be done to overcome or suppress the problems posed by it. Your health care team can recommend a special diet plan, medication, exercises, and other self-care activities to help you in leading a normal life. As much as you’ll feel overwhelmed because of this disease, coping skills and a strong will can help you in fighting all the challenges life is throwing at you.
Here are some quick tips to help you know that living a normal life with arthritis is indeed possible:
Keep Going and Keep Moving
Thinking that because you have arthritis, you should just limit your physical activity and prefer to rest all the time isn’t a good idea. The moment you limit the movement of your joints, you have decided to shorten their life. In arthritis, all you need to do is to carry out calculated movements instead of stopping them. Avoid holding a position for longer periods of time, for example, get up and stretch every 15 minutes if you do a desk job. You should also be involved in light exercises like jogging, aerobics, etc.
Take Your Medications on Time
The medicines recommended by your doctor can help in controlling the inflammation and pain. Instead of suffering because of chronic pain, it is better to make these medicines a part of your life. However, taking medicines for prolonged periods does come with side-effects. Therefore, it is better to consult your doctor occasionally and change the medicines on his recommendation if you feel that they are doing you more harm than good.
Keep a Positive Attitude
It is hard to keep yourself positive when dealing with chronic pain, but once you’ve decided that you are going to fight this disease, do not let anything change the course of your thoughts. Try your best not to give in to this pain because people who have a positive attitude can significantly boost their ability to cope with it. Enjoy your hobbies and spend time with friends and family. Do the things that make you happy and take yourself out of the phase where depression takes over your thought processes.
Eat Healthy Food
As soon as the disease is diagnosed, you have to change your diet and ensure that you only let healthy things inside your body. Certain foods can boost inflammation, whereas others can help in controlling it. It will not be possible to devise a healthy diet plan by yourself, so you can take assistance from a nutritionist and ensure that you only consume foods that are best for your joints. Some miracle foods include ginger, garlic, fatty fish, broccoli, walnuts, berries, and spinach.
Manage Your Weight
Excess weight puts pressure on the weight-bearing joints and results in extreme pain. Also, the fat tissues send out such chemical signals that increase inflammation. Being overweight is already not good for your health as it can cause numerous diseases and it will worsen the condition of your joints if you are suffering from arthritis. Apart from healthy eating, working out is equally important to manage weight. Just make sure to consult a physiotherapist or a chiropractic clinic in Austin to know about the kind of exercises that are okay for you to perform with arthritis.
Avoid Any Kind of Stress
In arthritis, there are certain kinds of movements that put stress on your joints and can result in prolonged pains. For example, opening a tight lid can be difficult if you have arthritis and you may end up with extreme pain in your wrists if you stress yourself to do it. Find solutions for such issues so that you don’t end up in difficult situations. Consider buying a jar opener to get rid of this problem. You can make certain modifications inside your home so that adjusting to this new lifestyle isn’t much of an issue.
Develop Self-Help Skills
Arthritis affects you in many ways from changing the shape of your joints to the way your skin looks, but most people won’t even be able to tell if you’re suffering from it. You’re going to be the best manager of the disease and this means planning your activities ahead of time. You can learn to manage your arthritis symptoms and how they affect your moods and daily activities. Use symptom-management skills and problem-solving methods to help you in identifying and overcoming the hurdles of performing various tasks.
Rely on Good Body Mechanisms
Body mechanics simply means to use all your body parts wisely and learning to perform daily activities in a way that puts less stress on your joints. It includes having a good posture so that your neck, back, hips, and knees stay protected. If your job requires you to stand or sit for prolonged hours, then this means that you should do them while preventing slouching and without causing any harm to your back. Even as you sleep, try to lie on your back and use a cervical pillow to avoid stressing your neck muscles.
Support from Family and Friends
After your diagnosis, you would need your family and friends more than ever. This doesn’t mean you’re weak or have become dependent on others. Rather, this only implies that you are human and require emotional support to move forward. You can also look towards support groups, where you will meet people fighting the same problems and who can help you in overcoming the issues. It is okay to ask for help because maintaining complete independence is a recipe for disaster in this disease.
Stay Happy
If you don’t feel happy, there are meager chances that any of the above-mentioned tips are going to help you anyway. As impossible as it may sound but avoiding depression and unhappiness is your best shot at coping with this disease. Try to meditate or seek therapy so that you can overcome the mental trauma that comes with arthritis. Also, you must ensure that you do not let other matters get into your head.
Wrapping Up
As soon as you are diagnosed with arthritis, you have to keep in mind that a bad day doesn’t mean a bad life. There will be days when you wake up and every inch of your body aches but it is up to you how to get past the pain and have your life the way you want. There is no denying that special care should be taken because if you don’t take your condition seriously or end up in an accident, even a car accident doctor will only be able to help you to a certain extent. Accept the new normal and you’ll feel that nothing ever changed in your life.
