Arthritis has always been associated with older people, but now more and more young people are being diagnosed with this condition. Arthritis is the stiffness and inflammation or swelling of the joints. You can feel pain or tenderness in your shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, ankles, and other parts of your body. It becomes a problem when it limits your ability to walk or the constant pain limits movement in those parts of the body.
Types of Arthritis
Osteoarthritis
This is the most common type of arthritis. This happens when the protective cartilage on the ends of your bones wears down over time. It’s more common in the hands, knees, hips, and spine. This type of arthritis worsens as you get older and old injuries from when you were younger can have an effect.
Rheumatoid arthritis
This type of arthritis is an autoimmune disease, which means that your joints are being attacked by bacteria and viruses caused by other diseases.
Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
This arthritis affects children 16 years of age and younger. It causes joint inflammation and stiffness for over 6 weeks.
Gout
This is characterized by sudden attacks of pain, redness, and tenderness of the joints, often making you feel like your big toe is on fire. This is caused by high levels of uric acid and the accumulation of urate crystals, which cause inflammation.
Also: Simple Ways to Reduce Arthritis Pain
What Can You Do to Prevent Arthritis?
In many cases, you can’t prevent arthritis from happening. Maintaining a healthy weight, and seeking treatment may help pain and joint function, but there is no cure for most of these types of arthritis. Being overweight increases the force on your joints, especially your knees, so exercise can help to strengthen and make your joints more flexible. In addition, eating fish like salmon, trout, mackerel, sardines, that contain Omega-3 fatty acids may reduce inflammation in the body.
Other things to try are :
Calcium: This is crucial to maintaining bone density and a calcium-rich diet. Eating things like leafy vegetables and low-dairy products can benefit you greatly. Otherwise, 1,000 milligrams of a calcium supplement is recommended for people under the age of 50 and 1200 milligrams for those over 50.
Cayenne pepper: Peppers contain capsaicin, which is an ingredient in many over the counter topical creams that help reduce pain.
Cat’s claw: This is very common among Latinos since it originates from the South American rainforest. It has anti-inflammatory properties which relieve swelling, joint pain, and stiffness.
Chamomile: You can drink chamomile tea which helps reduce inflammation and rheumatic pain. It contains spiroether which helps ease sore muscles and joint pain.