The festive season is a time to have fun, enjoy some family gatherings and office parties as well as allowing a bit of indulgence. However, if you suffer with osteoarthritis, this can be a challenging time. Standing for long periods can cause pain, sitting for long periods can cause pain, even the cold weather can cause pain! So how can you enjoy the festive period without struggling.
Why Winter Can Be Tough on Osteoarthritis.
Just the weather alone can be an issue. As the days get colder, your joints can get more painful. While the solution can be to crank the heating up, that isn’t always an option in todays high energy cost world. So what other ideas are there:
- Hot Wheat packs – The modern alternative to the hot water bottle can be a life saver when it comes to joint pain. Whether you add it to your bed before you get in for the evening, or place it under your blanket while resting on the sofa. A heat pack is a cheap and effective way to help your stiff and painful joints. If you have arthritis in your spine, a heat pack is great at night, lie up against it and let it heat your joints. Your duvet is designed to retain heat, so this approach can help the stiffness that cold weather at night can cause.
- Heated Gloves – Osteoarthritic Fingers can be extremely painful in the cold weather. However, now you can grab some heated gloves at the click of a button and keep your fingers warm. These often use a battery that keeps the gloves warm. Well worth a stocking filler present, if you know someone with Osteoarthritis. Have an Amazon search, for lots of choice on not just heated gloves, but heated jackets and even heated socks!
How to help painful joints at the Office Party.
Office parties are great fun, but the dancing and standing can be a nightmare. If you have Osteoarthritis in you knee, hip or back, you often find yourself desperate for a chair and a painkiller far too early in the night.
Preparation for the office party really needs to start in September. Once the summer break is over, it is time to get strong. Osteoarthritis joints get painful due to the bones rubbing together. So the solution, in most cases, is to increase the strength and stability of your joints. Even if you have left it very late in the day, and that party os only a week or two away, getting some strength in will really help.
Let’s start with the back. Osteoarthritis in the spine is common place and as you get older, your spine is more likely to be affected. We have a simple exercise to start getting some strength in and it involves strengthening the core muscles. These muscles are spoken about a lot, but rarely exercised correctly. In order to activate these muscles, all you need to do is to suck your tummy button towards your spine, and hold it there for a few seconds.
The key to doing this correctly is to make sure it is only your tummy button that moves, don’t move your pelvis or your lower back. Once you can suck your tummy in and hold it, you can try this on your hands and knees.
As the picture shows, relax your lower back so the natural curve shows. The easiest way to do this is to push your bottom out, this will help your lower back to drop towards the floor. Have your knees directly under your hips and your hands directly under your shoulders. This helps ensure the position is correct.
Once you are in this position, slowly pull your tummy button in towards your spine. Try not to move your spine, or your pelvis. Many people flatten the curve of the lower back when they do this. The curve should remain. Then hold that position for the count of 5 and relax. You can repeat it a few times and if you want to, several times a day. It is an excellent way to help lower back Osteoarthritis stiffness and pain.
Knee and Hip pain
Knee and hip pain generally occurs due to the alignment of these areas being poor, and as a result the bones rub. This is worse when you are standing, as gravity creates downwards force through these areas. When you dance, you twist and turn exacerbating this further.
Really, this needs a proper assessment, to work out where the weaknesses are and a tailored exercise program being given. However, a do it yourself approach can involve either the gym, or bands. In each case you are aiming to sit down and bend, or straighten each knee individually. You are trying to check that both legs are the same strength and if not rebalance them
Using a band, and ideally, keeping the foot straight, slowly straighten your knee. If this hurts as you straighten, play around with your foot position, try twisting it outwards and see whether that helps. Slowly complete 3 sets of 5-10 reps on each leg. This will help to strengthen it as well as rebalancing the legs. Ideally you want to do the same thing with the muscles on the back of your legs as well.
If you have Osteoarthritis in your knee or hip, the root cause is often your foot. Strengthening your feet can improve things considerably. For this we need to use a towel.
Keeping the ball of your foot on the floor, try to bend your toes so that you scrunch up the towel. This will start the process of strengthening up the arch of your foot. The arch affects the biomechanics of the whole lower leg and can improve knee and hip pain considerably.
Osteoarthritis pains need a professional assessment to ensure that the correct exercises are given. If you try these and they don’t work for you, come on in and we can assess you fully and set you specific exercises.
Given a few weeks of strengthening, and you will be able to stand, dance and enjoy your evening in a much more comfortable way.
Everyone with Osteoarthritis is different, one size does not fit everyone. So give us a call and we can start you on a new journey for your Osteoarthritis, one that does not involve you limiting your festive fun.
