Beating joint pains by beating inflammation

NSAIDs can help

One approach to breaking the spiral of ever intensifying joint problems, is to take anti-inflammatory measures.

Once the destructive elements of immune processes dominates the healing processes, even if only for a short period, a cycle of pain, inflammation and loss of mobility can set in. When these immune processes go out of balance, inflammation can prolong unchecked. Inflammation is accompanied by pain, although sometimes experience tells you, its pain that causes inflammation.

Inflammation is a natural part of the body's healing process. The body floods the area with blood, to provide extra white blood cells to deal with injury or illness. The extra blood leaks causing swelling and warmth, and the release of chemicals that mark out the area for attention from the immune system. When things go wrong, inflammation stays for longer than needed - well after the cause illness is gone, and as inflammation itself causes pain, that in turn sets off a chain of events that prolongs the problem. One of the chemicals sent to the inflammation area, is the neurotransmitter, serotonin - which is used by the nervous system to combat pain by closing pain "gates". The now diverted serotonin, can cause a shortfall in the nervous system. There, serotonin is essential to closing the gates that control pain, and you feel more pain. This causes the brain to react even more powerfully, by sending in more serotonin to the pain site. Therefore, causing more inflammation, which is actually promoted by the serotonin acting on another chemical, prostaglandin.

Pain limits movements, and unused muscles soon get wasted. Which means more pain when you try to move the joint. But, lack of movement also mean that nutrition cannot get to cartilage, as it relies on physical movement to get nutrition to site. Therefore, the healing process is further undermined, and your spiral of worsening joint pain continues to get deeper.

Breaking the spiral essentially is about countering one or more of the elements that make up the spiral, as described above. The joint pain management regimes that can be applied here are as follows.

1. Reduce inflammation
2. Reduce Pain
3. Keep your joints moving
4. Unlock muscle spasms
5. Sleep and rest well to help recover.

Reducing Inflammation

There are a variety of prescription and non-prescription drug based options as well as natural remedies and food that will systematically attack inflammation processes, as examined below.

NSAIDs. Many anti-inflammatory drugs rely on interfering with the prostaglandin cycle to be effective. Referred to as NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) collectively, these remedies do not change the course of the disease, but control the symptoms of inflammation and therefore, pain. Another downside is the side effects that cause harm to stomach and gut lining.

You need to break the spiral of inflammation, pain, lack of movement and muscle fatigue. As proven anti-inflammatory agents, NSAIDs are unmatched in being approved by pharma regulations for this purpose, and how often doctors prescribe them as a first option.

Worse still, there is the possibility that "joints dry", meaning cartilage becomes less supple, with prolonged use. This is because NSAIDs may inhibit the action of the water holding, proteoglycans. This effect is particularly unfortunate to long term health of the very joint the NSAID is meant to support, and because it is slow coming, it will creep up under the normally vigilant radar of most arthritis sufferers.

When side effects occur, withdrawal is not straightforward, and the withdrawal pain felt can be worse than before the NSAIDs were first taken. This is because the body systems are dynamic - in calling for inflammation via the prostaglandin messenger, and finding it not happening (because the NSAIDs have interfered), it causes more prostaglandin messengers to be secreted. Therefore a higher dose of NSAID has to be taken to make a reductive impact, and consequently much more inflammation messenger is floating around when the NSAIDs are stopped. This is why, dose alteration of NSAIDs are best accomplished under supervision of a health professional, even if many long term joint pain sufferers, I know, manage this themselves. 

Suppressing prostaglandin with NSAIDs may be anti-inflammatory, but it also indiscriminately impairs function of the gut where there are naturally occurring, so-called "good prostaglandins". Continued long use of NSAIDs can therefore do harm to the gut, making it leaky - meaning that particles of a larger size can leak through the gut wall into the blood stream, and then initiate more auto-immune reaction. So as a medium to long term side effect of NSAID use, you can develop, the so called, leaky gut syndrome, leading to food intolerance (allergy) issues.

All told, individual reaction to NSAIDs vary in terms of side effects and many can tolerate them well. Doctors everywhere tend to regard NSAIDs as relatively safe for people suffering joint pain and arthritis at large, certainly in short term use.

The persistent pressure of NSAID side effects, has led, more recently, to the introduction of an alternative drug treatment - Cox-2 inhibitors. Cox-2 is an enzyme in the inflammatory process. Of this class of drugs, Vioxx and Celebrex are the best known here. Cox-2 inhibitors became rapidly popular as doctors were sold on the idea of their value to protecting the stomach and gut lining, in contrast to conventional NSAIDs. For many users, unable to tolerate standard NSAIDs any more, Cox-2 inhibitor introduction was literally life saving. Unfortunately, their side effect profile whilst different to NSAIDs was altogether more serious enough for one best selling brand to be withdrawn from availability. Cox-2 inhibition is a step up in technology compared to NSAIDs and, were they more proven in their side effect profile, they would have been the preferred option above, in my opinion.   

There are many claims of natural cox-2 inhibition properties of certain herbs but, whilst they are relatively safe, to be fair, their action is not. It may even be the case, that Cox-2 inhibition is being fashionably proposed as the mechanism post clinical research that shows anti-inflammatory action. Among these are turmeric, rosemary, holy basil and ginger.  

Foods and Other Anti Inflammatory measures