Eight misconceptions in the treatment of osteoarthritis
2016/07/04 16:32:58
1. blind treatment of Chinese medicine. In people's traditional Chinese medicine concept, "general rule is not painful, pain is impassable." Osteoarthritis is often classified as arthralgia due to joint pain. This kind of arthralgia usually refers to the external environment, such as cold, damp and other causes of joint disease, so some people think that "old cold leg". However, modern medicine believes that the etiology of osteoarthritis is far beyond the scope of arthralgia syndrome, but a variety of factors caused by the damage of articular cartilage. If we do not fully understand this, blindly taking traditional Chinese medicine treatment will bring serious adverse consequences. Traditional Chinese medicine is not without toxicity, some of the treatment of rheumatism Huoxue Huayu, Tongjin Huoluo traditional Chinese medicine often have a toxic effect on the liver, kidney function will be damaged. There have been patients taking vine plants to treat arthralgia, resulting in acute renal failure. Long term blind treatment will delay the disease and make the patient lose the best time to treat.
2. Treat blindly according to rheumatism. Because many rheumatism have joint pain, so patients often subjectively believe that as long as the joint pain is rheumatism before diagnosis, according to rheumatism everywhere. Osteoarthritis is a common case of rheumatoid arthritis. There was an elderly man from Sichuan who had suffered from painful facet joints in his hands for decades, and the joints were gradually enlarged and deformed. He was seeking medical treatment everywhere. He was treated with rheumatoid arthritis for a long time. It turned out that the old man was a pickle factory worker, because of the low degree of mechanization of the factory, pickled vegetables need manual operation, such a dry for decades, eventually due to overwork caused by joint wear. Later he checked for rheumatoid factor, which was negative, and took X-rays of both hands, consistent with the changes in osteoarthritis, which was finally diagnosed as osteoarthritis. If the patient continues to treat rheumatoid arthritis, he will suffer from the disease. Because the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis is long-term, patients need to use non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve pain, but also the use of disease control drugs. In addition to their therapeutic effects, these drugs also have many adverse reactions, such as their effects on the blood system and their toxic effects on the liver and kidney.
3. blindly take "soft bone spur" drugs. Many patients often go to the doctor in disorder, in order to relieve the pain, looking for drugs to eliminate bone spur everywhere, in fact, this practice is not scientific basis. As mentioned above, bone spurs are hyperplastic bones that are produced by degeneration of articular cartilage, so bone spurs are bones. How can bones be eliminated by drugs? There is no such thing as divine medicine in the world. Imagine if there was a drug that could dissolve bone, what serious adverse reactions would it bring to the body? So it is totally misleading that drugs can soften bone spurs.
4. Blind supplementation of trace elements (calcium, zinc, etc.). Supplementary trace elements to help the disease, such as calcium supplementation is beneficial to osteoporosis. However, the etiology of osteoarthritis is not lack of trace elements, so supplementation of trace elements has no direct therapeutic effect.
5. only symptomatic treatment in the long term. Symptomatic treatment is needed to alleviate the pain. However, it is generally temporary and short-term treatment, and many patients are long-term use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs symptomatic treatment. This kind of medicine is familiar to the patients with osteoarthritis, and may also be used frequently, such as indomethacin, fosalin, ibuprofen, fenbuterol and so on. These drugs undoubtedly play a positive role in alleviating pain, but they also have many adverse effects on the body. To sum up, these drugs have the following positive and negative effects on the disease: _can alleviate joint pain, alleviate symptoms, but can not solve the fundamental problem, that is, only the treatment of symptoms, not radical treatment, because these drugs can not control the development of the disease. Therefore, non hormonal anti-inflammatory drugs can not be used alone for a long time. _There are many side effects of drugs, such as liver and kidney function damage, gastrointestinal ulcer and bleeding, blood, nervous system and necrosis of femoral head. About 50% of the patients with gastric and duodenal ulcers, bleeding or erosion induced by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have no symptoms, and even some elderly patients with large areas of gastrointestinal ulcers do not feel pain until gastrointestinal bleeding to the hospital; some patients for long-term use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, Ultimately leading to renal failure and the need for dialysis treatment; also due to the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to make platelets drop sharply, leading to cerebral hemorrhage and death. So this kind of medicine must be used with caution. Osteoarthritis is not life-threatening, and it should not be caused by improper medication. 3. It has adverse effects on cartilage. Clinical studies have shown that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can inhibit cartilage synthesis and directly destroy chondrocytes. The lesion of osteoarthritis is cartilage. If long-term use of non-hormone anti-inflammatory drugs, will have a destructive effect on articular cartilage, thereby aggravating osteoarthritis. The longer the use of non steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, the greater the dose, the more serious the destruction of articular cartilage.
6. Weight is not important in the treatment. Weight loss, joint injury and weight bearing play an important role in the treatment of osteoarthritis, but this is rarely recognized. As early as the 1930s, some people have noticed that obese people tend to have osteoarthritis, foreign literature reported that the incidence of obese patients with osteoarthritis is 12% - 43%. Data collected from patients with osteoarthritis more than 30 years prior to the onset of disease showed that men aged 37 and over 20% of the standard body weight were 1.5 times more likely to develop osteoarthritis than those of the standard body weight, while women were 2.1 times more likely to develop osteoarthritis. Over the next 36 years, the risk of severe knee osteoarthritis in men increased by 1.9 times, in women by 3.2 times, and in overweight men by 60 percent. Another report: Because the weight or load mainly concentrated in the medial cartilage of the knee joint, this is the most common site of osteoarthritis in obese people, suggesting that obesity may be a more important risk factor for severe knee osteoarthritis. Obesity can cause osteoarthritis, in addition to weight factors to increase joint weight, but also with obesity caused by posture, gait and exercise habits change. For overweight people, special attention should be paid to the role of weight loss in the treatment of osteoarthritis. Studies have shown that weight loss of 5 kg in 10 years can reduce the incidence of knee osteoarthritis by 50%. Patients with osteoarthritis should try to reduce their weight to the standard range, simple calculation of standard weight method is: weight (kg) = height - 105.
7. Relevant treatments may or may not be needed. Patients tend to focus only on drug treatment, while ignoring the important role of related issues in the treatment of osteoarthritis. (1) Medical and physical exercises: muscular exercises can improve the coordination and strength of muscles, relieve the symptoms of joints, enhance the strength and endurance around joints, increase the stability of joints, maintain and increase the range of joint activities and improve the ability of daily activities, which is conducive to the recovery of the disease and disease control. (2) Role of society and family: Severe patients can be relieved when they receive care, understanding, support and help from society and family. Physical therapy: Physical therapy plays an important role in the treatment of osteoarthritis, especially for those who can not relieve symptoms or can not tolerate drugs, physical therapy is a better treatment. It helps to enhance the muscle strength of patients and improve the range of activities. In acute phase, physical therapy mainly relieves pain and swelling, while in chronic phase, it mainly strengthens local blood circulation and improves joint function. It should be noted that massage must be operated by a specialist, not blindly to informal small clinics for massage treatment. Because massage can not play a direct therapeutic role, if the treatment is inappropriate, it will aggravate the condition. Old people often have osteoporosis, if massage too hard, often will cause fractures, especially cervical and lumbar vertebral bone hyperplasia in the elderly, more can not easily massage treatment, if improper massage caused fractures, often nerve injury, or even paralysis, the consequences are unthinkable.
8. Protect damaged joints. Pay special attention to avoid mechanical injury of joints, minimize the weight and wear of joints, such as knee, ankle osteoarthritis patients on weekdays should try to avoid going up and down stairs, long squatting, standing, kneeling and climbing mountains and trudging more intense joint injuries movement. It should be avoided especially when joints are swollen. I have received a number of patients with exacerbated illness after strenuous exercise, such as some elderly people to participate in disco dancing competitions, exercise time is longer, the result of knee swelling, pain, unable to walk. Northern farmers often do farm work squatting, and osteoarthritis of the knee and ankle are common. In order to achieve the purpose of exercise, patients can choose swimming, cycling, doing gymnastics and other joints lighter weight-bearing exercise, but also can use handles, canes, knee pads, walkers, wedge-shaped insoles or other auxiliary facilities to assist joint movement. 5. Wear shoes also have exquisite: should wear appropriate shoes, actually wear flat shoes, is not the best choice. Because wearing flat shoes when walking, weight will be too much pressure on the heel, walking for a long time, the upload of the impulse may cause heel, ankle, knee, hip, waist and other parts of the pain and discomfort, long-term adverse effects on the joint can appear osteoarthritis performance, sometimes headache, dizziness, and so on. Moreover, due to the decrease of the cushioning function of the arch, it is easy to cause fractures at the foot. So it's best to wear soft, flexible soles, such as sloping heels of leisure shoes, which can reduce the impact of gravity on the joint, reduce joint wear. In addition, the heel should not be too high. It is advisable to wear the front foot about 2 centimeters above the sole of the shoe. Do not wear high heels. As the elderly is a group of osteoarthritis, so in addition to pay attention to the height of the heel, the elderly shoe sole to a little wider, but also must have anti-skid ripple, in order to avoid falling.
9. Cartilage protectors are not needed. Currently, commonly used cartilage protectors can prevent the pathological process of osteoarthritis. These drugs are radical drugs, which can improve the condition of cartilage, restore the normal biochemical environment of joints, and repair damaged articular cartilage. Many patients do not realize the fundamental effect of this kind of medicine, think that the use of two can, resulting in a significant reduction in the treatment effect.