Arthritis is the ancient Greek term for inflammation of the joints. Therefore, any disease or condition that causes your joints to become swollen, painful, and stiff is a type of arthritis. Doctors have identified more than 100 types of arthritis. The most common variations include:
Some risk factors associated with arthritis are beyond your control. For instance, you can’t stop the aging process, which is a risk factor for osteoarthritis. You may also inherit some types of arthritis, including RA and PA. And, if you’re female, you’re more likely to develop RA than a male is.
Our internist, Dr. Kimberly Bolling, is an expert in diagnosing and treating all types of arthritis. Although some risk factors are beyond your control, many are not. And when you take control of your risk factors at our Bowie, Maryland, office, you reduce your odds of developing severe arthritis.
How can you prevent arthritis or prevent it from becoming severe enough to affect your daily living and quality of life? The following are five risk factors that you can control.
No matter what type of arthritis you have, being overweight or obese raises your risk for severe degeneration of your joint tissues, including cartilage and bursae. Excess pounds put tremendous stress on your joints. In addition, being significantly overweight or obese can impair your ability to exercise enough to keep your joints healthy.
If you've tried to lose weight without success, or if you’ve lost it and then regained it, or even added more pounds, it’s time for medically supervised weight loss. With our help, you can learn to change the way you eat and move to shed pounds more easily and keep them off.
What does smoking have to do with your joints? Everything. Smoking dehydrates your entire body, including every organ and tissue.
You can see the effects of smoking on skin tissue quite clearly: A study on twins demonstrates how smoking ages facial skin. Smoking robs your skin of collagen, leading to more wrinkles, more sagging, and deeper eye bags.
Even though you can’t see what’s happening inside your joints, you can definitely feel it. When your body lacks proper hydration, protective tissues like cartilage and bursae begin to wear down, allowing bones to rub together and leading to pain and inflammation.
Even if you’re not overweight, your diet can affect your joints. If you eat an abundance of pro-inflammatory foods, you’ll get an abundance of inflammation. Inflammation leads to tissue degradation and more severe arthritis.
Pro-inflammatory foods include sugar, refined grains, and ultraprocessed foods, such as cured meats that are high in nitrates. Even nightshade vegetables like tomatoes and eggplants can cause inflammation due to the presence of a natural chemical called solanine.
Switch to a Mediterranean-type diet or any eating plan that emphasizes fresh, whole foods, such as:
If you still have arthritis pain, consider cutting out the nightshade vegetables to see if you’re sensitive to solanine.
Leaving yourself open to an infection, including COVID-19, by not getting vaccinated, may lead to worsened joint pain. Infections cause systemic inflammation, which can affect your joints. You may need to take a course of antibiotics if the infection is bacterial rather than viral.
If you perform the same actions multiple times a day, day after day, you run the risk of degrading your joints, leading to arthritis. Consider working with a physical therapist to modify your movements if you engage in such occupations or hobbies as:
Currently, arthritis is incurable. However, you can prevent its worsening by working with medical professionals to modify your controllable risk factors. Dr. Bolling may also help with medications to control the pain of flares and reduce inflammation.
To get help modifying your risk factors for severe arthritis, or to relieve arthritis pain, call our team today at 301-352-0090. You can also click here for our convenient appointment form.
