You wake up, and your joints are already feeling like they’re on fire. This scenario is imaginary, but it may be very close to what rheumatoid arthritis patients in Jacksonville, North Carolina, deal with every day. If you are a Jacksonville resident with rheumatoid arthritis, you’re definitely not alone. This is because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that almost 25% of North Carolinians have some type of arthritis. One major issue that comes from living with rheumatoid arthritis is the issues it causes in your day-to-day life. However, there are three tips that can help make living with this condition easier.
1. Move around every day
When you’re living with rheumatoid arthritis, you may be tempted to move around as little as possible. This is a natural reaction to the pain, joint stiffness and other symptoms of this condition, but less moving around can actually increase your pain. This is because a lack of movement tightens up muscles and other soft tissues. In turn, the extra tightness places more strain on the joints, and this can make them more painful. However, it’s not necessary for you to run a marathon every day. Something like walking around the block can be an easy, low-impact way to move around and help out your joints.
2. Eat plenty of antioxidants
Living with rheumatoid arthritis is a constant fight against the inflammation in your joints. One way to give yourself an edge in this fight is to eat more antioxidant-rich foods. Antioxidants are compounds that help the body remove inflammation-producing free radicals, and vitamin C and vitamin E are two common antioxidants. Eating foods that contain these helpful vitamins is as easy as picking up some yellow bell peppers, oranges, sunflower seeds and avocados during your next grocery run.
3. Rest when you need to
Some people living with rheumatoid arthritis try to maintain a high level of activity, but you should also be careful to rest when you need to. It’s definitely good to keep active physically and mentally if you have this type of arthritis. However, rheumatoid arthritis can also make you feel tired more quickly. This is because the body spends a lot of energy fighting the symptoms of this condition.
For this reason, you may notice that you tire more quickly, but many people try to power through this tiredness. In many cases, this just increases your fatigue and makes it harder for your body to deal with arthritis symptoms. It’s important to take a break when you feel tired to give your body some time to recover.
Peak Performance can help make living with rheumatoid arthritis easier in Jacksonville, NC
At Peak Performance, our experienced physical therapy team in Jacksonville has helped many people live a higher quality of life with rheumatoid arthritis. We always personalize our treatment plans to target the symptoms that are giving you the most trouble, and we have many therapy techniques that can help treat rheumatoid arthritis, including:
Take the next step to reduce your arthritis pain. Contact us today for more information or to schedule an initial appointment.
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