Best Treatment Options for Your Arthritis

If you are struggling from pain due to arthritis, you’re not alone. The latest studies put the number of Americans with the disease as high as 91 million, and this number will only increase over the next 20 years as our population continues to age.

The good news is that plenty of treatment options are available to help ease your pain. At Health Solutions in the greater Chicago area, our expert team of pain management specialists understands the concerns that come with having arthritis.

We want to help minimize the pain you experience while increasing your quality of life and avoiding invasive solutions, such as joint replacement surgery.

If you want to regain pain-free movement, here’s a look at what arthritis really is, and some of the best treatment options we offer.

What is arthritis?

Before we get into our treatment options, let’s take a quick look at what we’re up against when it comes to arthritis. To start, arthritis is a catchall term for more than 100 different types of conditions that cause pain and inflammation in your joints. These conditions fit into four categories:

• Degenerative arthritis, such as osteoarthritis
• Inflammatory arthritis, including rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis
• Metabolic arthritis, namely gout
• Infectious arthritis

For all types of arthritis, it’s important to remember that there’s no cure for the disease. Even though this is the case, there are still many ways we can slow its progression and make you more comfortable.

Best treatment options for arthritis

At Health Solutions, our goals include relieving your pain and helping you regain mobility. To accomplish these objectives, we turn to a number of different treatments, sometimes alone and sometimes in combination with each other. These treatments include:

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications

Also called NSAIDs, these medications are usually our first line of treatment as they help reduce inflammation and relieve your pain. This includes medicines like ibuprofen.

Joint injections containing corticosteroids

A joint injection includes a local anesthetic to relieve the pain, and a corticosteroid to handle the inflammation. These injections offer immediate relief and can last from weeks to months, sometimes even up to a year.

Medial branch blocks

If your arthritis pain is in your back and neck, especially the facet joints in your lower back, a medial branch block can be especially effective. The block reduces inflammation and quiets the nerves responsible for sending pain signals to your brain.

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy

This newer regenerative technique involves spinning a sample of your blood in a centrifuge to extract the platelets, which are added to your plasma. This new blood sample with a high concentration of platelets is then injected into your damaged joints to promote repair and rebuilding in your connective tissues. 

Our approach with arthritis treatment is to begin conservatively as we attempt to relieve your pain. Once you’re more comfortable, you can engage in additional therapies that go a long way toward improving your arthritis, such as physical therapy. Lifestyle changes like losing weight and exercising more can also go a long way toward slowing the progression of your arthritis and relieving your symptoms.

Ultimately, your joints were designed to move, so our goal is to get you back to pain-free movement using the most advanced arthritis treatments available.

If you’d like to explore your treatment options for arthritis further, please contact one of our four locations in the greater Chicago area. You can call any of the offices to set up an appointment, or you can book your own time with our convenient online scheduler.