Arthritis Advisor

Ask Dr. Marks: 12/03

Subscribers Only Since I am unable to swallow pills, I wonder about the effectiveness I can expect from chondroitin sulfate if I open a capsule and take the contents with food? The effectiveness of chondroitin sulfate will not be altered by opening capsules and taking the substance with food. The real question is, “Is chondroitin sulfate effective?” …

Take A Dip, And Do Your Knees A Favor

Subscribers Only The disabling pain that comes with osteoarthritis of the knee may cramp your style on the tennis court, ski slope, and hiking trail. But if you’re like most people suffering from knee OA, the discomfort shouldn’t be enough to keep you from slipping into a warm swimming pool and, under the guidance of an aquatic exercise specialist, going through a series of comfortable routines designed to both ease your pain and strengthen your knee. …

Hip Moves

Subscribers Only Healthy hip joints are essential for keeping yourself on the go. These ball-and-socket connections between leg and pelvis are at the center of the action each time you sit, stand, take a step, rotate your leg, or bend at the waist. To make sure that these daily activities remain easy to do, it’s important that you keep the muscles around your hip joints strong and flexible. Here are several exercises that will help. Some may…

Minding Your Meds

Subscribers Only How closely are you following your arthritis treatment regimen? Are you taking your medications exactly as prescribed? If not, how do you expect to manage the aches, pains, swelling, and other symptoms that torment you day and night? “If you want to get better and stay better,” says Michael P. Wascovich, R.Ph., “you’ve got to do what the people in the white coats—the doctors and pharmacists—tell you to do. It’s as simple as that. Treating most…

Drink To Your (Joint) Health

Subscribers Only There’s water, water everywhere, and people with arthritis should drink a lot of it —at least two or three 8-ounce glasses daily. Although offering no nutritional value in itself, water transports essential nutrients throughout your body. It hydrates your cells, enabling them to carry out vitally necessary metabolic activity. And since water is the prime component of the synovial fluid filling the spaces in your joints as well as the cartilage that cushions your bones,…

In the News: 12/03

Subscribers Only RA Patients At Higher Risk For Periodontal Disease New evidence suggests that individuals with moderate to severe periodontal (gum) disease are at higher risk of rheumatoid arthritis, and vice-versa. Although it’s not known just how closely the two conditions are allied, researchers at the University of Queensland (Australia) School of Dentistry have discovered similarities in factors contributing to both diseases. …

Mini-Cut Knee Replacement Arrives

Subscribers Only Of all the surgical options for knee arthritis, only total knee replacement is viewed by doctors as a long-term cure. Says Dr. Peter Brooks, a Cleveland Clinic orthopaedic surgeon, “It’s the only procedure in which you’re removing everything that is, or could become, diseased—the cartilage, the linings, the ends of the bones.” …