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Why Do My Joints Hurt? Causes of Joint Pain & Pain Relief

Dr Livingood
Why Do My Joints Hurt? Causes of Joint Pain & Pain Relief

Our joints are crucial for mobility – after all, they allow our limbs to move the way they do. Without joints, we wouldn’t be able to walk or move our arms around nearly as flexibly as we do normally.

Everyday use of our joints wear down over time and can lead to joint pain. Let’s take a closer look at the causes of joint pain and examine some pain relief strategies you can use starting today.

Joint Pain in a Nutshell

Joint pain is incredibly common – maybe even more common than you might think! That’s partly because joint pain can lead to a wide variety of health-related issues.

Being particularly common, joint pain can present itself in the knees, shoulders, hips, and elbows, although knee joint pain is by far the most frequently experienced. Typically, joint pain can technically affect any joint in your body, including your hands, ankles, and more.

What Does Joint Pain Feel Like?

If you’ve ever experienced it, you already know that joint pain feels like uncomfortable aches or soreness around your joints and the muscle fibers that surround them. Usually, joint pain affects the joints and bones themselves, not your muscles. Depending on your exact symptoms, your joint pain might manifest as overall soreness or a grinding type pain that only flares up when you use the pained joints in question.

What Can Cause Joint Pain?

Arthritis is an incredibly common cause of joint pain in both of its forms: rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Arthritis typically affects joints such as your wrists, hands, knees, and hips since this condition causes cartilage to break down, leading to overall weakness in the joint areas.

Furthermore, rheumatoid arthritis can cause inflammation and fluid buildup in your joints since it’s an autoimmune disease. Your immune system essentially attacks the membrane that normally lines your joints and prevents the bones from rubbing against each other.

Aside from arthritis, joint pain can be caused by issues like:

  • Gout, which is typically caused by eating too many meat products
  • Bursitis, is a condition that affects the cushioning pads around your joints
  • Lupus
  • Mumps and other infectious diseases like hepatitis or influenza
  • Tendinitis occurs when your tendons become inflamed
  • Cancer
  • Osteoporosis
  • Joint or bone infections
  • Injuries

You can try some natural home remedies to temporarily relieve your joint pain.

Ways To Address Joint Pain

Many of the below methods focus on strengthening, supporting, or relieving the joints. While they may not be a permanent solution, a lot of the strategies below can work to temporarily soothe the pain. 

Rehab and Stretching

People with joint pain can consider physical therapy, or simply adding daily rehab and stretching to their routine.

Rehab and stretching can strengthen any muscles around the affected joints, stabilizing them, and improving your range of motion overall. You can utilize physical therapy techniques at home such as stretching. Doing some light exercises to target your sore joints will also help relieve some of the pain. 

Stretching, striping, strengthening, and exercising muscles are even more important if you’re overweight and it’s the source of your sore joints. You can search by joint and by pain source to find YOUR specific helpful rehab here.

Ice/Heat Therapy

Hot and cold therapy can also be effective. Heat treatment can be anything from a hot shower, electric blanket, or hot towel.

Applying a heating pad to your sore joints can help loosen up the muscles around the area and can stimulate blood flow to any inflamed joints or tissues.

Then, apply a cold treatment using an ice pack or similar product. Applying a cold implement can bring down swelling and inflammation, and numb the nerves in the sore area.

Keep Your Weight Down

Exercise and fixing your nutrition can aid in keeping your weight down and can go a long way toward decreasing the risk of joint pain. Many folks experience intense joint pain as they gain weight over time since their joints have additional stress put on them. Mayo clinic states one pound of weight in your upper body puts four pounds of stress on your lower joints! 

If you’re experiencing sore joints in your ankles and hips as opposed to other areas, working toward a healthier weight by removing sugar can both lighten the stress on your joints and help strengthen and support them, too! Removing sugar from your nutrition will also cut down on the inflammation in your body.

Tumeric and Omega 3s

Turmeric is a spice known to be helpful in reducing arthritis discomfort, which is often caused by inflammation in the joints. 

Studies show that 1500mg plus of omega 3 can relieve pain as well or better than dangerous over-the-counter NSAIDs like aspirin, ibuprofen, or Advil. Fish sources of omega 3 such as EPA and DHA are two forms of omega 3’s that have these effects. Another plant-based omega 3’s like ALA are beneficial but do not have as powerful of an anti-inflammatory effect as animal sources.

Livingood Daily Omegas + Turmeric combines highly absorbable turmeric and high-quality fish oil into a supplement that will help fight inflammation, pain, and swelling. It not only has Omega 3, 6, 7, and 9’s from high-quality sources like macadamia nut oil, borage oil, and superior TG fish oil, but it now features highly absorbable curcumin which is over 400x more absorbable than unformulated 95% curcumin. Livingood Daily Omegas helps maintain healthy cardiovascular function, normal healthy digestive functions, joint health, joint comfort, aches, and pain relief and reduces common aches.

Joint Supporting Supplements

Lastly, consider supplements that support your joints, such as the Livingood Daily Collagen + Joint Support which contains 4 types of collagen, MSM, and hyaluronic acid to assist your joints with the nutrition they need to rid fluid that results in swelling, repair, stay lubricated, move freely, and function at their best.†

Consider Chiropractic, Acupuncture, or Massage

Chiropractors specialize in restoring joint mobility and function. Proper spinal x-rays may reveal why a joint is degenerating or hurting in the first place. Acupuncture is a traditional medical treatment that originated in China. It can be effective for treating certain types of joint pain.  However, you’ll need to find a certified and licensed acupuncturist for this treatment. Massages can also help to relieve your joint pain by releasing tension in the muscles and easing away inflammation surrounding sore joints

Summary

Overall, supporting joint pain will likely require some lifestyle adjustments on your part and ongoing treatments. But with the right mindset and some experimentation, you can work to soothe joint pain and even target the source of it directly. 

 

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