Studies have show that bee venom is an effective natural remedy that can relieve arthritis symptoms and help to prevent the disease, since it can lubricate the joints and improve the range of motion in the arms and fingers. Another natural remedy, cat’s claw, has also been known to decrease inflammation and eliminate discomfort. Cat’s claw can also treat tendonitis, which is a common side effect of arthritis. Since fluid tends to build up around the joints, herbs like cat’s claw can help to drain the toxic fluids from the body if taken regularly.

You can also change your lifestyle that will serve as natural remedies and ensure that you feel better and reduce the complications that can come along with arthritis. For instance, simple changes or adjustments to your diet can significantly improve arthritis. Including more green vegetables in the diet, such as kale and kelp (seaweed) normalize bodily fluids and increase joint movement, and eating more foods with calcium and B vitamins can strengthen the bones.

Today, there are many solutions that can be solved with natural remedies and they are successful to improve a person’s life in many ways. But, If you’re thinking of taking natural remedies to treat your arthritis, be sure to talk to your physician about using alternative medicine to treat your condition. It may be a good idea to take only one type of medication at a time, since traditional and natural medicines may decrease the effects of each medicine. Be sure to take your natural supplements slowly, and increase the dosage as your body gets used to the
‘medication.’

Natural remedies are as old as mankind, and they’ve worked well for others, but remember what may work well for one might not for you.

Can diet help to reduce the pain? An arthritis diet is simply a list contains food that can relieve the symptoms and foods that you need to avoid.

In fighting arthritis, you need eat foods that are

• high in vitamins and minerals,
• sufficient in protein,
• high in slow-releasing carbohydrate,
• low in fast-releasing sugar,
• low in overall fat, and
• high in essential fats

Studies show that a diet high in cholesterol and fat may contribute to the arthritic condition. In 1989, over one thousand arthritis patients participated in a survey. It reveals the list of foods that may aggravate the arthritic condition. These includes red meat, sugar, fats, salt, caffeine, and nightshade plants. When they avoid eating these offending foods, they show an improvement of the symptoms within a few weeks. Dairy foods are one of the main culprits. The problem lies in its protein instead of fat.

This is just a guideline on the food that you should include and exclude in your diet.

List of inclusion

• Fruits: fresh, frozen, or canned unsweetened fruits, fruit juices.
• Grains: non-gluten ones such as brown rice, millet, buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, tapioca.
• Breads/Cereals: any bread or cereal that uses non-gluten grains.
• Meat/Fish/Eggs: all fresh fish, wild game, turkey, lamb, chicken.
• Legumes/Nuts/Seeds: beans, peas, lentils, almonds, cashews, walnuts, sunflower, nut butters, sesame, nut butters.
• Dairy products: milk substitutes such as rice milk, soya milk, nut milk, almond milk
• Vegetables: raw, steamed, sautéed, juiced or baked vegetables expect those in the exclusion.
• Fats: cold-pressed olive, flax seed, sunflower, safflower, sesame, canola, walnut, almond, pumpkin oils. Use tahini-based dressing.
• Spices: cinnamon, dill, cumin, ginger, garlic, parsley, oregano, thyme, rosemary, tarragon, turmeric.
• Sweets and sweeteners: brown rice syrup, fruit sweetener, dried fruit bars, fresh fruit, molasses.

List of exclusion

• Fruits: all citrus fruits
• Grains: gluten grains such as wheat, corn, barley, oats, and rye.
• Breads/Cereals: any bread or cereal that uses gluten grains.
• Meat/Fish/Eggs: beef, pork, cold cuts, sausage, canned meats, eggs, shellfish.
• Legumes/Nuts/Seeds: peanuts, pistachios, peanut butter.
• Dairy products: milk, cheese, cottage cheese, cream, yoghurt, ice cream, butter, non-dairy creamers.
• Vegetables: all nightshade family vegetables except yams and sweet potatoes.
• Fats: margarine, butter, shortening, spreads, and dressing that does not contain fats in the list of inclusion
• Spices: cayenne pepper, chilli, paprika
• Sweets and sweeteners: white or brown sugar, honey, corn syrup, maple syrup, high fructose corn syrup, chocolate bars and other confectionery.

The most important of all is to eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. If you can afford it, choose organic foods as they contain more nutrients compared to non-organic ones. When you are on arthritis diet, make sure you drink plenty of fluid. This helps to detoxify your body. If you don’t like to drink so much water, replace it with fruit or vegetable juice.

The oils can influence your moods, help you to feel relaxed, reduce fatigue, and lessen anxiety.

Aromatherapy gains popularity very fast in the alternative medicine. Many people use it in home, clinical and hospital to ease pain and relieve stress.

Aromatherapy treatment for arthritis uses essential oils such as:

• Cinnamomum Camphora (Camphor)
• Cupressus Sempervirens (Cypress)
• Eucalyptus
• Ginger
• Hyssopus Officinalis (Hyssop)
• Juniperus Communis (Juniper)
• Lavandula Officinalis (Lavender)
• Matricaria Chamomilla (Chamomile)
• Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary)
• Styrax Benzoin (Benzoin)

You can make your recipe to treat arthritis. Mix six drops each of rosemary and chamomile oils with four ounces of base oil such as almond, avocado, sesame, or soybean. Apply the mixture on the affected area. Then massage the oil until it is absorbed into the sore arthritic joints. For an extra pain relief, add ten drops each of rosemary and chamomile oils in a tub of warm water. Then rest for about 10 minutes in it.

You can use essential oils in other ways in treating arthritis. You can lightly dab and wear as a cologne or perfume. You can add the oil into a bowl of hot water. This will create the vapor. Inhale the vapor.

• the pain medications cannot provide the relief you want,
• you could not afford to bear the rising costs of prescription medicines,
• you worry about the side effects from the use of the drugs, and
• you believe that holistic therapy can do a better job than pain medications.

However, do alternative arthritis treatments really help to ease your suffering?

Many people practice alternative treatments nowadays. They are not new. In fact, ancient people use it for various healing purposes. Based on their accounts, the therapies seem to help them.

Alternative therapies can be categorized into six groups namely,

1. bioelectromagnetic applications,
2. touch and manipulation,
3. mind-body intervention,
4. pharmacological and biological medicine,
5. herbal preparation, and
6. holistic medical practice.

If you intend to choose holistic treatments, find one that is simple and make sure your doctor has approved it. However, this may be difficult. Many doctors are not open to these alternative approaches. They may not provide sufficient information on various types of holistic therapies. It is hard to find a doctor who is well versed in both Western medicine and holistic practice.

You should be cautious if you opt for complementary treatment for arthritis.

1. You cannot find many studies to support their claims. Many holistic practitioners do not have big budgets for clinical tests like those that large pharmaceutical companies do. Most of the times, the effectiveness of alternative therapies depend on anecdotal studies. Sometimes, these may be good enough to convince you to try them.
2. Unlike conventional treatment, the Food and Drug Administration do not approve alternative treatments to be used in medical field. In some studies, subjects who take placebo experience relief from arthritis even though the relief is only temporary. In addition, the difference of success between those who take placebo and holistic products is small. Theretofore, it brings up a question of competence but these studies do not cover all forms of holistic practices.
3. The manufacturers of natural-based products are not obligated to follow any quality standard since no regulatory body is available to establish a universal benchmark for quality. Therefore, the quality for each product of the same brand varies. Another reason for non-uniform quality is because the presence of the discrepancy in the quantity of active ingredients. As a result, the effectiveness of these formulations remains questionable.

Alternative treatments for arthritis still need more clinical studies to determine both short-term and long-term advantages and disadvantages. It is not easy to determine which alternative method will work for you. Although they may look safe, but you should consult with your doctors provided they understand how these unorthodox methods work in treating arthritis.

You can find a number of alternative treatments for arthritic pain. Among them are arthritic diet, aromatherapy, exercise programs, and acupuncture.

Before starting any diet, always check with your doctor. You should avoid dairy products as they can aggravate the joint pain. You may assume that vitamins can help to relieve the pain. However, you should not take high dosages of vitamin without direction from your doctor. You should increase your intake of vitamins and minerals through your diet. Some vitamins and minerals can aggravate certain conditions of arthritis.

Take dietary supplements such as chondroitin, fish oil and glucosamine.  Chondroitin encourages inflow of fluid into cartilage. This increases the ability to absorb shock and controls weight. Lesser weight removes more joint pressure.

Fish oils helps to control inflammation in the body while glucosamine relieve osteoarthritis pain.

You can use aromatherapy in treating arthritis. Use essential oils such as cinnamon, thyme, eucalyptus and clove. They are natural relief for arthritis. You can apply them on the the affected areas and soles of the feet to assist the whole body.

Exercise can act as a holistic therapy for arthritis. It helps to ease the stiffness in joints,  reduce stress on joints, maintain the bones and cartilage tissue strong and healthy, and increase flexibility. You do not need extreme exercise. Simple routines such as walking can bring tremendous relief. Carrying light weights can  improve the arthritic condition.

Yoga helps your body to stretch with pose-orientated exercises. It can increase flexibility and reduce stress physically and mentally.

Acupuncture uses needles which are inserted into the skin to stimulate accupoints in the body (acupoints). This stimulation can provide therapeutic benefits. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted a study on acupuncture and arthritis. It showed that a 44 percent average reduction in pain and a 40 percent improvement in mobility. A new study showed that acupuncture can significantly minimize pain and improve function in patients who experience osteoarthritis of the knee.

Some of the conventional treatments can be invasive and unsafe. Alternative treatment for arthritis can offer you a safer way to treat this disorder. However, consult your doctor first before using any alternative method.

However, when your body delivers the calcium to the wrong area, it can cause abnormal bone formation at the damaged surface of a joint. This is known as arthritic spurs. Therefore, this arthritic condition is not due to the lack of calcium but a calcium imbalance in your system.

What can cause the hormonal imbalance? Here is a list of things that can disturb the calcium imbalance.

• Too much stress
• Overindulgence of coffee, tea, chocolate
• Insufficient of physical activities
• Exposure to toxic metals such as lead
• Thyroid imbalance

The medical professionals say that arthritis has more than 100 various forms but they all have a similar trait which is joint inflammation. Each arthritic condition can be the result of your immune-system malfunctioning, imbalances in your body, self attack, infections, uric acid crystals, inflammation, and calcium pyrophosphate crystal build-up.

Unfortunately, arthritis does not have a cure. The treatment options depends on the type of arthritis you have. Your doctor may suggest physical and occupational therapy, pain medications, and arthroplasty as the last resort. Although prosthetic joint replacement is a treatment of last resort, more than 90% of patients experience relief.

Every now and then, you will hear or see advertisements on new products that are being promoted as effective and affordable. You start to fill gels, pads, rubs, and ointment into the medical cabinet in a battle against arthritis. Yet the pain continues to persist.

The most common form of this disorder is osteoarthritis. This happens when your joints begin to degrade. It can be debilitating to the extent that you find it difficult to move. In most situations, aging is the cause.

Regardless of the type of arthritis, you have to learn how to cope with the pain. It varies in location and severity. Every one will feel the pain at different intensities at different time.

Arthritis strikes regardless of age, gender or generation. Whichever way you look at arthritis, it is the pain that you need to deal with. On this blog, you will discover how to intervene, prevent, protect and manage arthritis pain.