How to treat knee arthritis to make it effective? You need to help your body, reduce stress, normalize metabolism, improve bowel function, and make the kidneys and liver easier. In other words, to reduce excess weight, start eating right, reduce the content of animal fat, meat, and digestible carbohydrates. The menu includes dishes made with vegetables, fermented dairy products, rye, bran bread or whole wheat flour.
Correct diagnosis is the key to treatment. Arthropathy is a symptom of many diseases with different treatment options. Therefore, for patients, the cost of incorrect diagnosis and even independent diagnosis is even higher.
For modern medicine, how to treat knee arthritis is not new. For its treatment, there are now a variety of methods, including treatment and surgery. Since switching to surgical methods is always the last resort, we will consider treatment methods.
Medicines
The effectiveness of treatment depends on the stage of joint destruction and its timeliness. It usually starts with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
They have no direct effect on the cause of the disease, nor prevent the destruction of joints. Their role is only to relieve the main symptoms. The signs of inflammation decrease, the swelling subsides, and the pain disappears or is much lessened.
With the help of anti-inflammatory drugs, the intense pain is relieved, which makes it possible to gradually transition to other treatments, such as massage, which is contraindicated due to pain and inflammation.
However, long-term use of these drugs is not advisable, because it conceals the manifestations of the disease and creates a picture of a complete cure, but the disease can actually progress. In addition, side effects can further enhance the process of cartilage destruction. Therefore, if there are questions about long-term use of this group of drugs, selective anti-inflammatory drugs should be preferred.
If the diagnosis is clear-knee arthritis, vasodilators should be prescribed: to enhance the nutrition of cartilage, the synovium of the joint will stop destroying and enhance the recovery process. In order to reduce allergic ingredients, desensitizing drugs are prescribed.
Cartilage protectors can treat knee arthritis
How to treat knee arthritis without trying to restore the cartilage structure damaged by the disease?
For this purpose, a group of drugs called chondroprotectants are used.
They not only affect individual symptoms, but also affect the cause of disease, help improve the condition of cartilage surface, improve the production of joint fluid and its lubricating properties.
They improve the production of synovial fluid, improve the properties of synovial fluid, and restore cartilage material. The only thing to remember is that you can only restore what is still there. If the cartilage is completely absent, damaged, and there is bone edge growth, these drugs will not help.
Therefore, the best effect of using chondroprotective agents is if you start using them as early as possible, but not more than grade I or II knee arthritis, and in the long run, you should use them several times a year.
Unfortunately, these tools are not instantaneous. Sometimes it takes 2-3 courses to get results, which can take six months to one and a half years. When the cartilage has been completely destroyed, this group of drugs is completely ineffective in the third stage of the disease. However, despite this, among all the drugs used for arthropathy, chondroprotective agents are the most useful for patients, and in addition, they have almost no contraindications and side effects.
Joint injection
Intra-articular injection of drugs has a good effect, but it should be kept in mind that the process itself will damage the tissue of the capsule and cause infection of the joint cavity. Usually, corticosteroid drugs are injected into the joints. For long-term effects, use steroids (if necessary to relieve severe inflammation).This process is usually performed to provide urgent care to the patient. This can quickly relieve pain and inflammation. However, for a variety of reasons, it is not desirable to have multiple injections to the same knee every two weeks.
If the joints are calm and there are no obvious signs of inflammation, chondroprotectants can be injected directly into the joints. They can quickly reach the goal and play a positive role.
Significantly improves the sliding of the bone joint ends relative to each other, and reduces the load of hyaluronic acid cartilage injection. Of course, if there is no obvious cartilage destruction, these drugs will be very effective.
External facilities
Patients often ask how to use external means to treat knee arthritis? After all, the first thing to make knee pain is to wipe and wrap it warmly.
Unfortunately, no ointment, cream or various rubbing methods can cure arthritis. But they can be used as anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve the patient's condition and pain, and they will not have an irritating effect on the gastrointestinal tract. Use warming ointments, as well as ointments based on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. The skin only absorbs 5-7% of the active substances, so these ointments are not as effective as we want.
But it is more effective for compression of knee joint arthritis. For them, medical bile can be recommended. They can directly relieve inflammation and have anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects.
Massage and physiotherapy
Physical therapy for arthritis also has a positive effect. Procedures such as ultrasound, laser, magnetic therapy, and sound therapy are used. Because of them, the pain sensitivity of the joints is reduced, the inflammatory process therein is reduced, and swelling is eliminated.
You can use ra, salt bath, bile compress.
If possible, you can perform manual traction therapy. In this case, the ends of the bones move away from each other and their load is reduced. Only skilled professionals can operate with great care. Artificial treatment and massage of the knee joint can also achieve good results, improve the blood circulation of the diseased joint, stop the development of its destructive process, and restore its function as much as possible.
Massage is particularly effective when the initial stage of the disease has not been fully destructive. It is best to do this after remedial gymnastics. A hot shower or steam bath is a good preparation for massage. After that, the muscles are heated and the massage has a deeper healing effect. In the treatment of knee arthritis, nursing homes also have a beneficial effect. The healing mud improves the process of regeneration in cartilage, improves the nutrient supply of joints and the blood supply of joints.
If the joint is completely destroyed, only surgical treatment can help-substitute artificial joints.
Preventive measures: reduce the destruction process
The reason for preventing arthritis lies in its occurrence, mainly being overweight, trauma and poor physical activity. Physical education and feasible physical exercise can strengthen the muscles around the joints. Therefore, the load on the cartilage is reduced. Walking and swimming in the morning are useful.
At the same time, it is important to pay attention to the alternation of load and rest during exercise and proper safety. It is necessary to avoid injury and overload in every possible way. After all, injuries are one of the main causes of joint disease. The appearance of microcracks determines the existence of the initial focus of inflammation. Therefore, for athletes and sports fans, don't forget protective equipment such as knee pads.
Preventing knee arthritis also means sticking to diet. Every pound of weight added puts extra pressure on the leg joints. You need to eat as little sweets, flour, fruits and vegetables as possible. Studies have shown that vegetarians are much less likely to suffer from joint disease. Coffee and strong tea have a bad effect on joints. They can remove calcium from bones, but natural dairy products help replenish their reserves.