[♪ music ♪] [Streaming Well]
[Arthritis Care] [Free Helpline: 0808 800 4050] [www.arthritiscare.org.uk]
[Self Help For Arthritis Pain]
[♪ music ♪]
[Dr. Fraser Birrell] Hi, my name is Dr. Fraser Birrell.
I am a consultant rheumatologist with Northumbria Healthcare
and an honorary clinical senior lecturer at Newcastle University.
I've been asked by Arthritis Care to make a short film on coping with pain when you have arthritis.
The most important message is that you can cope with pain and still enjoy life.
[Exercise]
There are 2 main types of exercise, and both can be helpful for people who have pain in their joints.
Firstly, there's strengthening exercise and there's lots of evidence from controlled trials
that people who undertake strengthening exercise of the muscles around their hips and their knees
have improvements in the pain
in addition to strengthening the muscles, which makes you less likely to fall.
Secondly, aerobic exercise.
This is the type of exercise that helps raise your heart rate and sometimes even work up a sweat.
If you do aerobic exercise for 30 minutes 5 times a week,
then this will help your cardiovascular fitness and also have the benefit of helping correct the sleep cycle.
Lots of people who have pain have interrupted sleep,
and if you tire out your body, your mind will also benefit more from the restoration that you get from sleep.
The important thing is that exercise is for everybody,
and when you exercise you should take advice from the people who are helping to look after you,
and that could include your GP, a practice nurse, or a fitness instructor.
And make sure that the exercises that you undertake are the right ones for you.
As long as you do the ones that you enjoy, and preferably they have a social element—
so for example, joining in with an exercise class—then it's something that will give you a social element
as well as making sure that you're fitter and that your pain is improved.
[Heat and Cold]
Both heat and cold can be helpful for pain.
Taking a hot shower, for example, can help all your joints and your muscles and help relax you.
If you've got local pain in one joint, you can put a wheat bag in the microwave
or you can wrap a hot water bottle in a blanket and apply it to the affected joint for up to 15 or 20 minutes.
Some people find it more helpful to use cold, and a bag of frozen peas or sweet corn, if you prefer,
from the freezer can be applied to the affected joint, and this can give you lasting relief when you have a flare.
Although there's various scientific reasons why each one might work, actually in practice what we find is either one works
probably acting by gating pain at the spinal level.
The important thing is how it feels for you and you using the right thing that works for you.
[Sleep and Rest]
We've talked about exercise, but it's also important to balance that with appropriate rest
and make sure that you get a good night's sleep.
Once you've had good exercise in the day, you'll be preparing for sleep by avoiding caffeine
and other stimulants such as cigarettes.
And when you're settled for the night, you can either be picking up a good book or listening to your favorite music,
making sure that the room is appropriately darkened and that there's no other disturbances.
Once you get a good night's sleep, you'll undoubtedly find that you're better prepared for the next day.
[♪ music ♪] [Arthritis Care] [Free Helpline: 0808 800 4050] [www.arthritiscare.org.uk]
[Streaming Well]
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