When you are a person who suffers from arthritis, it can feel like your entire life is negatively affected. However, there are numerous treatment options to help you cope when you are living with arthritis. Some of these are medical including prescription drugs, surgery, and regular injections while others are supportive in nature. Get to know some of the supportive arthritis treatment options that can help you manage your arthritis and continue on with your daily life so that you can give some or all of them a try as soon as possible.

Occupational Therapy

Because arthritis can have a significant impact on your daily life and how you go about the tasks required of you throughout your daily life, occupational therapy can be an extremely beneficial treatment option. Occupational therapy is much like physical therapy except for the fact that occupational therapy specializes in helping patients to be able to perform daily living tasks like getting dressed, grooming, bathing and showering, and other specific tasks specific to an individual person's needs.

So, if your hands or wrists are severely arthritic, you may find that some of these daily living tasks like brushing your teeth or getting dressed (i.e. buttoning a shirt or tying your shoes) can get difficult. An occupational therapist will help you come up with coping methods to be able to perform these necessary daily tasks on your own and/or with equipment to assist you. You will work with your occupational therapist to perform these tasks and do strengthening and flexibility-building exercises to get your arthritic joints to better cooperate with you as well.

Nutritional Coaching For An Anti-Inflammatory Diet

Another supportive treatment option that can help you with your arthritis is nutritional coaching. Seeing a dietician or nutritionist can help you to come up with a diet plan filled with foods that will help reduce and manage the inflammation in your body. 

If you have heard the old saying, "you are what you eat," you may be surprised to know that when it comes to fighting chronic diseases like arthritis, this saying is entirely accurate. There are foods that many people consume that can actually cause or promote inflammation in the body, including refined sugar and corn syrup, alcohol, and processed meat (among many others). There are also foods like turmeric, garlic, cinnamon, and foods rich in healthy omega-3s that are natural anti-inflammatory agents.

A nutritionist will help coach you on what you should and should not eat to control your arthritis and prevent flare-ups as much as possible. They can give you recipes and specific diet plans to follow or just provide general guidance as needed to keep you healthy and manage your condition.

Now that you know a few of the supportive treatment options available to you to help manage your arthritis, you can give them a try and (hopefully) get to feeling better as soon as possible. For more information, talk to a professional like Wright Physical Therapy.