The joints of my arms and legs hurt, what should I do? Pain in the joints of the legs and arms: causes and treatment

If the joints of the arms and legs hurt, what should a person do in such a situation? Of course, the first thing that comes to your mind is to go to the clinic and see your local doctor, and he will understand what it is: prescribe tests or refer you to a specialist. However, many of us know how difficult it can be to find time to go to a medical facility, because to do this you will have to take time off from work, then, most likely, sitqueue there or prepare a certain amount. money for a visit to a paid medical center.

In general, people have many reasons for self-medication at home. And it is not so rare that it really helps. Well, in our article you will find some popular recipes that help with joint pain of various types, as well as a list of pharmacological drugs specially designed to solve such problems. But first, we advise you to take reading the next chapter of our story seriously.

The importance of establishing the correct diagnosis

Asking everyone they meet: "If the joints of the arms and legs hurt, what should you do? ", people often do not understand that the pain that bothers them can be the initial stage of a serious disease, the development of which canto be stopped or slowed down in the initial stage, when the destructive processes in the joints have not yet gone too far.

Carrying out the treatment independently with the help of creams, rubbing, poultices, etc. , a sufferer exposes his health to considerable risk. After all, home remedies are far from safe and may be contraindicated for certain ailments.

For example, there is an opinion that to quickly solve joint problems there is nothing better than heating. But this is not true at all! If the disease is accompanied by swelling, acute inflammatory processes occur in the diseased joints and a local increase in temperature is observed, then applying heat to the problem area can only worsen the situation. If the joints of the arms and legs hurt, the causes, symptoms and treatment regimens should first be discussed with specialists (rheumatologist, orthopedist or traumatologist).

Here we will not criticize folk remedies: they can be an excellent help in the fight against various diseases, but only after the doctor makes the correct diagnosis and gives recommendations on what can benefit the joints and what will cause harm.

Various causes of joint pain

Why the joints hurt and what to do in these cases will be much easier to understand if you know the reasons that cause pain, pain in the limbs and limitations of their motor functions. Here are some of the most common joint diseases:

1. Rheumatoid arthritis.A chronic disease in which inflammatory processes are observed in the connective tissues. Characteristic symptoms accompanying arthritis:

   • Pain in one or more joints increases gradually over one to two weeks or may occur suddenly. At rest, the pain intensifies, especially in the morning.
   • Rheumatoid arthritis can affect both the large joints of the arms and legs (wrist, ankle, elbow, knee) and the small joints of the feet and hands. Inflammation of one joint is called monoarthritis and inflammation of several joints is called polyarthritis.
   • One of the symptoms of the disease in question is the limited mobility of the affected limbs during the first hours after waking up in the morning.
   • The disease is accompanied by a visible enlargement of the joints, redness of the skin in the problem area and increased sensitivity.

2. Rheumatism.This chronic disease gradually affects all organs (heart, kidneys, lymphatic system, etc. ), including the joints. The process can take many years. It is very important to start treatment as soon as possible. One of the most characteristic signs of initial rheumatism is joint pain that occurs periodically, sometimes accompanied by high body temperature and swelling.

3. Arthrosis.A disease associated with dystrophic-degenerative changes occurring in cartilage, with the gradual involvement of bone, ligamentous and synovial tissues in the pathological process. The most common arthrosis is of the knee, hip and elbow joints. Main symptoms:

   • the main symptom is pain that occurs during movement or stress in the affected joint;
   • gradual limitation of mobility. If the disease is not treated in time, the process can progress quickly, which will eventually lead to disability.

4. Injuries, bruises, physical overload of joints.

5. gout- one of the types of arthritis.

Arm and leg joints hurt: what to do?

Let's describe the main steps that should be taken continuously in case of joint pain:

1. Before finding out the causes of the pain, you should try to give the joints a rest.
2. Take some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
3. Contact a medical institution to find out the causes of the pain.
4. Get detailed recommendations from your doctor about the treatment regimen and medications you should take, as well as consult about traditional treatment methods, if you are going to use them.

Treatment of arthritis

Arthritis is most often severe pain in the joints of the hands. What should be done in this situation? The patient must understand that the treatment will require a number of complex measures. After all, it is necessary not only to relieve symptomatic pain, but also to slow down the inflammatory process, to restore normal blood flow to the affected tissues and cartilage, etc. For this, the doctor can prescribe, in addition to anti-steroidal anti. - inflammatory drugs, antibiotics. In the framework of this article, we can give an excellent recipe from traditional medicine.

For arthritis, a honey compress with cabbage is very useful. You should do it before bed. You need to take a fresh cabbage leaf, heat it, coat it with a thin layer of honey and apply the painted side to the sore spot. The compress is covered with cellophane on top, bandaged and wrapped in a warm woolen scarf. In the morning the patient will surely feel relief.

The role of proper nutrition

The joints of the legs and arms often hurt due to metabolic disorders in the body. Gout disease is one of the types of arthritis, a frequent companion of modern people, it especially afflicts the stronger sex. Probably everyone has heard this term: "deposition of salts in the joints". Some people think that it's all about common table salt, but that's not the case.

With gout, uric acid salts are deposited in the joints and this happens due to the constant consumption of meat, fatty fish and alcohol. Smoking also contributes to the development of the pathological process. If the joints of your fingers and toes are very swollen and painful, then perhaps the discomfort indicates the presence of gout.

This disease is easier to prevent than to cure. The main recommendation for disease prevention is proper nutrition. Nothing complicated: you need to include more vegetables, whole grains, fruits, cottage cheese in your diet and give up smoking and alcoholic beverages.

Osteoarthritis. Treatment

Today, many people complain that their wrists and ankles hurt. What should you do if the pain is caused by arthrosis? Here too, most likely, you cannot do without NSAIDs: they will help to quickly relieve the pain. Consultation with a doctor is required. An X-ray will have to be taken - it will help the doctor determine the degree of joint destruction.

In the treatment of arthrosis, along with anti-inflammatory drugs, taking chondroprotectors (substances that restore articular cartilage) plays an important role.

A good alternative natural chondroprotector is regular gelatin, which can be bought in stores. This product should be diluted in warm water and drunk several times a day. And for faster cartilage restoration, it is recommended to prepare homemade jelly or jelly meat more often, it also contains large amounts of natural substances from which cartilage tissue is built.

pharmaceutics

Several times when we mentioned in our article the question "what to do if the joints of the arms and legs hurt", we wrote that pain and inflammation are well relieved by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs for short. When treating joints, ointments from this group are very effective.

For severe pain, you can go beyond external ointments and take highly effective NSAIDs in the form of tablets or powders.

Physiotherapy

If painful joint pain persists, the doctor may consider it necessary for the patient to undergo certain physical procedures:

• UHF;
• phonophoresis or electrophoresis;
• UV radiation;
• magnetic therapy;
• transcutaneous electrical stimulation;
• paraffin baths and applications etc.

Joint treatment with ointments prepared according to traditional recipes

We continue to consider the main topic of the article: "What to do if your joints hurt? "Treatment with independently prepared ointments can be an excellent addition to the procedures prescribed by a doctor. What are these remedies and how to make them?

1. Ointment for rheumatism.To prepare it you will need 100g of mustard powder and 200g of table salt, which should be mixed together, then add enough kerosene to the resulting mustard-salt mixture to get a mass similar in thickness to yogurtof the village. The medicine is rubbed on sore spots at night.
2. Ointment for arthritis made from honey and egg yolks.Take an egg yolk, a block of beeswax (small) and 1 tbsp. l. honeyFirst, the yolk is heated in a water bath, in which the wax is then crumbled and the honey is poured. Everything is mixed to form a homogeneous ointment. For use, take a piece of gauze folded in several layers, put a hot mass on it, and in this form the medicine is applied to the joint and firmly fixed with a bandage.
3. Ointment for the treatment of arthrosis joints.Take equal parts of nettle leaves, juniper seeds (green) and sheep oil. The berries and leaves are finely crushed in a mortar and then combined with oil. The prepared ointment should be rubbed on the joints in the morning and in the evening.

Treatment with activated carbon

There is a simple but effective way to treat gouty joints. To do this you will need activated carbon. You will need to make a paste from this product. This is done as follows: tablets from several packages of coal are ground into powder, to which is added a little water and 1 tbsp. spoon of crushed flax seeds. After mixing thoroughly, the paste is applied to the injured joint throughout the night, after which it is bandaged and wrapped warmly until morning.

Clay therapy

Here is another excellent folk method of healing if the joints of the legs and arms hurt. We have already discussed the causes and treatment of many diseases and found that different diseases need to be treated differently. But there is an almost universal recipe - compresses, baths, mud wraps, which can be used for arthrosis, arthritis and rheumatic pains. Clay perfectly soothes pain, relieves inflammation and swelling, absorbs toxins from the body, etc.

Physical education and sports: benefits or harm to the joints

Those who are very keen on sports activities often have joint pain. What should you do if your knees and ankles hurt after long, grueling runs that seem to be done in the name of health? First, review your lifestyle. Any excess is harmful - this statement can also be applied to sports.

To free oneself from the feeling of constant discomfort in the joints of the legs, sometimes it is enough for a person to simply reduce physical activity. Jogging or walking (for the elderly), morning exercise, yoga and swimming are good for improving health. All of the above are unlikely to cause pain in your joints. On the contrary, such physical education will fill them with strength and endurance.

The last word

We hope that the information presented in the article will help those who have pain in the joints of the arms and legs. Diseases and methods of treatment, folk recipes and a list of drugs - all these materials were carefully studied by us in advance and only then were placed for public viewing. Use this information for your health and may your joints always be normal!