A detailed guide to Rheumatoid Arthritis, exploring its symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and effective treatments to manage joint inflammation and improve quality of life.
When it comes to chronic pain management, no one therapy has all the answers. Instead, chronic pain management needs to take individual differences into account and ensure an adequate and unbiased response to treatment. To help get the conversation started on chronic pain management, Chronicillness.co will convene a Chronic Pain Summit on July 17 and 18, in Ellicott City, MD. The event will feature presentations from prominent pain specialists and is designed to foster dialogue…
At a young age, we were warned not to twist to crack our backs so we don’t get arthritis. The sensation may feel good and is most likely not a cause of an existing arthritic condition. Instead, an autoimmune disease, where the body attacks the joint tissues, could cause arthritis, or the joints could have just naturally degenerated. Since we know that cracking your back cannot cause arthritis, our physicians want to describe the effects…
Almost no one is immune to occasional low back pain. But when it’s chronic, when simple movement seems impossible, it can keep you from enjoying life. And painkillers aren’t always the answer. Why not try meditation rather than medication? Research has shown that mind-body practices can help. These include yoga and cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, which teaches you how to change certain thoughts and behaviors, which are factors involved in sensing pain. Click Here…
Bone cement is a tool used by our physicians to create an internal cast that stabilizes fractured vertebrae. It does not look like the wet cement you may see on the street at first. In fact, it starts out as a fine powder composed of methyl methacrylate. Methyl methacrylate is most commonly used as bone cement, but it can also be used to make resin (filling for your teeth) or some plastics. A physician mixes…
Your cellphone puts the world at your fingertips, but it can wreak havoc with your neck. There’s even a name for the pain you get when looking down at your screen — “text neck” — and it can cause problems along the entire length of your spine. Bending your head forward multiplies the amount of weight your neck muscles need to support. Normally your neck supports the 10 pounds that your head weighs, but when…
Is arthritis pain getting in the way of your fitness plans? That need not be the case. In fact, physical activity can be vital to your continued mobility. Osteoarthritis is a joint disease that affects about 27 million Americans — most often in the knees and hips, but also in the lower back and neck. Doctors describe it as a degenerative disease — meaning the joint has worn down. Usually that’s from simple wear-and-tear over…
Stem cell clinics are charging big money for knee arthritis “cures” and making extravagant claims about their therapies, a new study contends. A same-day injection for one knee costs thousands of dollars at these centers, according to a consumer survey taken of clinics across the United States. Learn More: The Solution for Aching Knees People are paying that kind of cash because two-thirds of stem cell clinics promise that their treatments work 80 to 100…
A new treatment that aims electrical pulses at irritated nerves around the spinal cord appears effective at relieving chronic lower back pain and sciatica, a preliminary study suggests. The minimally invasive procedure, called image-guided pulsed radiofrequency, eased lingering pain in 80 percent of 10 patients after a single 10-minute treatment. Ninety percent were able to avoid surgery. “Given the very low risk profile of this technique, patients suffering herniated disc and nerve root compression symptoms…
Getting older certainly has its perks, but the reality is that aging can take its toll on many of us, despite our efforts to get out there and stay active—especially as the cold weather sets in. No, it wasn’t an exaggeration when your mother/father/grandmother or someone else rubbed their knee/elbow/back, winced and muttered, “I can feel a storm coming on.” Yes, there is evidence that shows a link between weather changes and chronic pain, especially…
If you’ve had sciatica leg pain, you know it can be miserable—shooting pain in your leg and sometimes tingling, weakness, or numbness. Sciatica pain starts when something in your body, often a herniated disk, is pressing on the sciatic nerve, which runs from the lower back down the back of your legs. The good news is that most people with sciatica start to feel better within a few weeks. For some, though, the pain continues for a year or longer.…