Aerobics and Dancing for Arthritis Pain Relief

Ah—dancing. Little did I think over 30 years ago, as I waltzed around the dance floor with some pretty maiden, that I would be writing about it today in an article dealing with pain relief. In that earlier life of mine, my knees buckled at the sight of some lovely feminine legs, but nowadays they crumple for a completely different reason.

For those of you who loved dancing before developing arthritis, it can still be a great pastime, and helpful in the quest for pain relief. It’s fun, it enables you to carry out useful movements, improving your physical condition. It also helps your stance, breathing, and overall general fitness. It’s also a great social outlet, and, dare I say it, makes you feel younger again, and good to be alive.

If you attend a structured dancing course, you’ll probably find that it combines range of motion movements and strengthening exercises in the prescribed steps. Some keen dancers find that they incorporate some of their dance movements in their other daily activities. I kid you not! They find that their motions have become more fluid and flexible, and that their walking is not as stiff as previously.

Of course, before you even think of tripping the light fantastic, there’s a couple of things that you should be aware of. If you’re carrying more plastic around with you than the cards in your pocket, such as a hip or knee replacement, check with your doctor that the moves in your dance routine will not be harmful. Even if you sometimes accumulate fluid in them, the doctor will be more than likely to advise you on safe ways to negotiate the dance floor.

You should also make sure that you wear comfortable clothing and shoes, especially the latter. They should be supportive, and can be of any variety, but low heeled ones are probably the best. You wouldn’t want to go there in your stiletto heels, only to stumble and break your arm or leg, whilst doing something that’s supposed to be helping you beat arthritis. Trainers can easily stick, thus cramping your style, and can result in less ease of movement.

If you are attending an informal dance, say in a club or at a party, you will need to be more careful—your partner might not know, or even forget, in the case of someone you already know, that you suffer from arthritis. This kind of situation is not likely to arise when you are in a class or taking lessons. However, you should always have a chat with with your instructor before starting, in order to explain to him about your condition, and any problems that you think may arise.

Pain Reel-ief indeed!

 

More Comfortable Environment for the Arthritis Sufferer

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all found that in just about every situation that we find ourselves in, the fact that we suffer from arthritis poses some kind of problem. For the next few posts, I’ll try to show some changes that can be made so as to help towards giving some pain relief, and making things a trifle easier.

If we look and try hard enough, a solution can be found for just about any problem. Maybe we cannot get rid of our arthritis, but we can modify our environment, whether it be in the home, at the workplace, or travelling. We can do this without any special arthritis relief aids or major adjustments. A lot of things which can help can be bought fairly cheaply at a chemist’s, discount store, by mail order, or online.

I’ll run through basic things that can be done around the home first of all. Try to arrange furniture so that you will have an easy and safe passage through each room. Have something such as a strong table near where you like to sit if you need help when getting up. If you can feel drafts in a room, find out where they’re coming from, and find a way of eliminating them. Rearrange your cupboards etc. so that your most frequently used things are within easy reach. If you have standard door knobs, get lever handles that fit over them, so that the doors will be easier to open. If you’re buying items that have to be carried or pushed, such as a vacuum cleaner, make sure that you get the lightest ones available. Build up the handles of hard to hold tools with pipe insulation or bubble wrap. Try to have long handled utensils, feather dusters for example.

A few years ago, a mate of mine who worked in a woollen mill gave me a stack of bobbin holders (hard plastic cylindrical tubes which fit into each other), and they have proved invaluable. I fit the handle, say, of a paintbrush into one of them, then add as many as I need to, depending on the job to be done. The finished ceiling might not be up to Sistine Chapel standards, but I get satisfaction from the fact that I’ve managed to achieve something with improvisation. Step stools are also very handy to have around to deal with items that are above normal reach. Replace hard snapping light switches with soft touch wall switchplates and touch attachments for lamps. Moving lower down, if you cannot carpet all the floors, put a rug or rubber mat wherever you stand for longer periods of time, such as at the kitchen sink, and get rid of other scatter rugs in case you trip on them, especially if you use a walking stick or crutch. I’ll have a look at changes that can be made in individual rooms in my next post.

Arthritis Pain Relief—an Introduction

Arthritis pain relief—who needs that, I can hear some people ask. Well, more than 50 million Americans suffer from some form of arthritis, and almost everyone over the age of 50 will develop some signs of it. There are millions more in other countries all over the world, so we cannot even make an educated guess at the total number of sufferers. As one of those, I decided to use some of my spare time in looking at causes, and especially at suggested cures for arthritis pain relief that might be available. There are countless books on the subject of arthritis, and it was only after buying and reading quite a few that I realised that there were various types of the disease. I’ve read a lot of material from various people—doctors, specialists, sufferers etc., and I thought that I’d jot down some things that might be of use in trying to minimise pain, and to give some relief to sufferers.

Just a bit of background about myself. I didn't always suffer from arthritis. I know that there are many who have to cope with it from an early age, but I was fortunate in that sense. I enjoyed my sports and other activities, and when it came to earning a living, it was as a self employed bricklayer—plenty of work available, and a fairly comfortable lifestyle because of the earnings I was able to make. Up until 1991, I considered myself fairly fit, with hardly a day missed because of ill health. I got up one fine summer’s morning that year, had my usual cup of tea (never any breakfast—very BAD idea!) and set off for work. The labourer with me mixed the first batch of cement, and set it on the mortar boards for me. I went to lift my first block of the day (they were 18in x 9in x 4in concrete blocks, and fairly heavy, to the uninitiated), and found that my fingers wouldn’t open out properly in order to grip it. My labourer thought that I was having him on, but he soon realised that I was being serious, and that something was amiss.

I wasn’t really a great one for having chats with doctors, but I had to go and find out what was wrong. After weeks of tests, x-rays etc, I was told that I had rheumatoid arthritis, and was warned that it would probably get worse. That has certainly happened over the years, as my knees began to be affected, plus my left shoulder, which I’d damaged in an accident a few years earlier.

Things that most people take for granted, for example sleeping, bathing, brushing one’s teeth, getting dressed, making meals, and even driving the car; for me, became extremely challenging. I thus began a quest for any kind of pain relief that might be available

Although I’m handicapped in some ways, I knew that I couldn’t sit still all day long—every day, week after week, year after year. My goodness, I thought, I’ve still got loads of time ahead of me—surely there’s something I can do. I had taken 2 years off from bricklaying to do a college course in Business and Scottish Highland Studies, all done through the medium of Scottish Gaelic. I had also been commissioned a couple of years before to research and write a book (in English) for the local Community Council, and had actually enjoyed doing it. I therefore decided to combine my knowledge of Scottish Gaelic and my growing love of scribbling. I decided to make an attempt at writing a book that would help learners of the language. By this time, I’d been using various creams to alleviate the pain in my fingers and wrists, and it was actually my knees that were giving me the most grief. I’ve now written 3 educational books, with a fourth on the way.

A lot of folk are much more seriously handicapped with the disease than I am, of course, and in my ongoing blog, I’ll look at various ways of maybe making life a bit more bearable for them. There are lots of methods of obtaining arthritis pain relief, some of which cost nothing, or are cheap, at any rate. Before that, we’ll take a look at some forms of arthritis.