When you’re suffering from pain in your joints, it becomes hard to function and take care of simple tasks in your life. Just getting out of bed can be painful.
You’re probably used to reaching for the nearest pain reliever or anti-inflammatory that you can find, but this is just a temporary solution which is often damaging on other parts of your body, like your liver in the case of taking an asprin-based pain reliever every day.
There can be a lot of reasons why your knees might be sore. Knee-related injury, arthritis, gout, being overweight, but generally when we start to age the cartilage in our knee begins to deteriorate. Once we start losing cartilage in our knee, the body can’t reproduce it, making your knee pain into a more and more chronic problem.
As mentioned before, taking acetaminophen might be a mild temporary relief to joint pain, but taking too much of it can put you at risk for liver damage, and side effects like nausea, loss of appetite, and itching. Acetaminophen can also interact negatively with other drugs.
Research has concluded that acetaminophen is the least effective way of treating joint pain.
Getting on top of your joint pain without drugs
Up to 40 percent of Americans over age 45 are at risk of some level of osteoarthritis, a form of arthritis which causes joint pain due to cartilage between bones wearing down. With baby boomers creating a top-heavy, rapidly aging society, it’s important to try more effective means for managing joint pain.
The Mayo Clininc, a nonprofit medical research group, advises us to try a few easy and effective ways to save your joints.
Firstly, you can see a physical therapist who will help you build the strength of your muscles around the joints and increase your range of motion.
Secondly, eating healthy and exercising of course will do loads to relieve strain on your joints, especially knees.
Third, you can try swimming and cycling, both of which are great exercises for joints which don’t put a heavy load on your knees like running on a hard surface or treadmill.
Fourthly you can get an insole for your shoe to relieve pressure on the knees.
Finally yoga, tai chi, and acupuncture can help release tension in the muscles and keep your muscles flexible and strong.
So when it comes to knee pain, you should know you have more viable options than reaching for the nearest painkiller! Talk with your doctor for more alternative options to keeping healthy joints!
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