What You Should Know About Osteoarthritis? (Part 2)

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What can you do to help myself?

There are several ways you can do to improve your symptoms and reduce the chance of the disease becoming worse, including:

1) Exercise regularly

• While you may worry that exercising with osteoarthritis could harm your joints and causes more pain, researches have shown that exercise is considered the most effective non-drug treatment for reducing pain, prevent stiffness and improving movement
• However, you may need to break your exercise into few sessions a day to reduce pain due to excessive activities
• 3 important types of exercise:

I. Range of movement or flexibility exercise 

These include gentle stretching and movements that take joints through their full range of motion. Do these exercises regularly, preferably every day to help improve the joint flexibility

II. Aerobic exercise 

Any exercise that increases your pulse rate and makes you a bit short of breath (for example brisk walk, swimming or using a stationary bike). These exercises improve your fitness level, help you to reduce weight by burning calories and improve your sleep and mood

III. Strengthening exercise

Exercises that improve the strength and tone of the muscles to helps to stabilize and protect the joint

2) Reducing stress on the affected joint, including:

• Pace your activities through the day - don’t tackle all the physical jobs at once
• Wear low-heeled shoes with soft, thick soles
• Use a supportive devices for example walking stick or knee brace
• Use the handrail for support when climbing stairs

3) Losing weight if you’re overweight or obese as overweight can exerts more pressure to the joint causing more pain. This can be achieved by changing to a balanced, lower calorie diet and combined with regular exercise. 

4) Taking supplements – Glucosamine and/or chondroitin. These are compounds that are normally found in joint cartilage. 

5) Applying hot pack to the affected joint to relief pain and stiffness; cold pack is use when there is associated joint swelling

6) Using over-the–counter painkillers such as paracetamol, aspirin or pain-relieving creams, ointment, gels or spray

What treatments are there?

If you still have pain after trying self-help measures, you need to consult a doctor to help you to manage your symptoms which may include:

• Comprehensive physiotherapy sessions and exercise plan
• Stronger analgesia or painkillers
• Steroid injections into the painful joint
• Hyaluronic acid injections
• Stem cell therapy
• Surgery – total joint replacement when most conventional treatments failed to resolve the symptoms. Artificial joint may last 15 – 20 years

Can I go for alternative treatment?

There are many different alternative or complementary therapies that available to help alleviate some of the symptoms such as pain and stiffness. However, what works for one person may not work well for another. Some of the most popular therapies that available in Malaysia are listed as below:

• Acupunture: may be useful in osteoarthritis as it claims to restore the natural balance of health by inserting fine needles into specific acupoints in the body to correct imbalances in the flow of energy (qi) thereby relieving pain

• Chiropractic: manually adjust the malalignment of the body aiming to improve mobility and relieve pain

• Homeopathy: use homeopathic remedies to relieve pain

• Massage: can loosen stiff muscles, ease tension, improve muscle tone and increase the flow of blood and lymphatic drainage

• Tai chi or qi gong: a type of exercises from China designed to calm the mind and promote self-healing through sequences of slow, grateful movements incorporated with visualization and sequential breathing 

If you are planning to try any of the alternative medicine, please make sure you choose a practitioner/ therapist with recognized qualification and registered under respective professional bodies. 

For more information regarding exercise plan for osteoarthritis, treatments of osteoarthritis including steroid and hyaluronic acid injection, platelet-rich plasma, stem cell therapy or any other inquiries, please contact us at +603-79601211 or email us at care@cliqueclinic.com

What You Should Know About Osteoarthritis? (Part 1)

Do you have persistent knee pain? Are you in your late 40's? 
One of the possible cause is osteoarthritis.

Let's look at some of the basic information about osteoarthritis here.

What is osteoarthritis?

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a condition that affects the joints, causing pain and stiffness. The surfaces within your joints become damages so the joint doesn’t move as smoothly as it should. This condition is also called degenerative joint disease or “wear and tear”. It’s by far the most common form of joint disease, affecting people all over the world and estimated approximately 1.7 million people in Malaysia.

What happen in osteoarthritis?

When a joint develops osteoarthritis, some of the cartilage (a thick, spongy layer that covered the ends of the bones that act as shock absorber to provide cushioning and distribute the load of body weight equally) gradually roughens and becomes thin, and the bone underneath thickens. All the tissues within the joint become more active than normal – as if your body is trying to repair the damage:

• The bone at the edge of the joint grows outwards, forming bony spurs called osteophytes
• The synovium (a thin membrane that lined the joint capsule) may thicken and produce extra inflammatory fluid, which cause joint swelling
• The joint capsule and ligaments slowly thicken and contract as if they were trying to stabilize the joint, which cause joint stiffness

Changes of knee joint in osteoarthritis

X-ray of knee: normal (Figure 1) and osteoarthritis (Figure 2)

What are the symptoms of osteoarthritis?

Symptoms may include:

• Joint pain which tends to be worse when you move the joint or at the end of the day
• Joint stiffness after prolonged inactivity or rest and wears off after a minute or two as you move
• Creaking or cracking sound (crepitus) when the joint moves
• Joint swelling
• Unable to use the affected joint normally or difficulty to do certain activities (for example climbing stairs, squatting)
• Giving away or joint instability

Almost any joint can develop osteoarthritis, but it most often affects the knees, hips, spines, hand and big toes.

Common joints that involved in osteoarthritis

Who gets it?

Almost anyone can get osteoarthritis but it’s more likely in:

• Elderly more than 50 years
• Women
• Individual with family history of osteoarthritis
• Individual which is overweight or obese
• Individual with previous joint injury (common cause for athletes)
• Individual with physically demanding job where repetitive movement is required
• Individual with other joint disease eg. gout or rheumatoid arthritis 

Please follow us to know more about osteoarthritis in Part 2 of the review tomorrow.