Tag Archives: arthritis

Knife-free Relief for Knee Arthritis

More than a million surgeries are performed every year to help people suffering from arthritis of the knee. While such surgery is sometimes the best option, two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one in 2002 and one in 2008, found that physical therapy and medications can be just as effective as […]

Bumping Up Treatment for Ganglion Cysts

Do you have a bump on the wrist your physician called a ganglion cyst? These soft-tissue fluid-filled lumps are usually harmless, generally painless and often go away on their own. Ganglions can occur in any joint and may result from arthritis or from injury due to repetitive stress activities. If the cyst is painful, interferes […]

Fighting Arthritis? Strengthen Your Muscles

Arthritis may be a joint disease, but strengthening the muscles is an important component in its treatment. That is because a leading cause of limited movement in people with arthritis—especially, for instance, knee arthritis—is the weakening of surrounding muscles, rather than pain, dysfunction or abnormalities in the joint itself. This raises an important question: Is […]

Personalized Rheumatoid Arthritis Strategies

You and a friend both have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but your treatment regimens are very different. You wonder why, for are not all cases of RA basically the same? Broadly speaking, any incidence of RA occurs because the body attacks its tissues as if they were foreign bodies. This is the hallmark of an autoimmune […]

Fusing Arthritis Surgery and Rehabilitation

For people who suffer from arthritis, surgery using a compression screw can treat the condition in the foot and ankle. In this procedure, two sides of the joint are roughened, and the two bones making up the arthritic joint are fused, using a screw. After the area is immobilized with a cast, the body is […]

Bracing Yourself Against Arthritic Knee Pain

Here’s the catch-22 of physical therapy: Reducing pain requires physical work, but physical work can cause pain that makes it extremely difficult to do that work. Patients with arthritis of the knee joint often find that using a brace allows them to perform strengthening exercises more easily. But some people wrongly believe that a brace […]

Must Arthritic Knees Be Replaced?

If your doctor says you have arthritis in your knee, does that mean you will need knee replacement surgery? The short answer is not necessarily. Fortunately, your body can compensate for the loss of function caused by arthritic damage to cartilage and bone in a knee joint, even if x-ray evidence seems to indicate that […]

Hip Arthroscopy: Revolutionizing Hip Joint Surgery

Move Your Hips After Hip Arthroscopy Overview Arthroscopy, a procedure using a small fiber-optic camera device, has revolutionized hip joint surgery. Often recommended for athletes or those with degenerative arthritis, it is used to remove damaged tissue or splintered-off cartilage floating around the hip joint or to reattach structures within the hip. Procedure Details The […]

Lubricating Your Arthritic Knee

A decade ago, individuals who had osteoarthritis of the knee were limited in their options for treatment: anti-inflammatory medications, cortisone injections, reduced activity or surgery. Viscosupplementation, a relatively new treatment involving injections of a lubricating substance called hyaluronan, has become available for patients who suffer from this painful condition or who are unable to tolerate […]

Exercise and Osteoarthritis

After receiving a diagnosis of “arthritis of the knee,” which is the most common form of osteoarthritis, you might be surprised when your doctor recommends exercise. Because osteoarthritis involves a progressive deterioration of the protective joint cartilage, the bone is exposed within the joint—leading many to believe that exercise would only intensify the condition. This, […]