Pain Management during Arthritis |
The pain is usually a sharp type of pain with movement and when patients get in certain positions the pain gets a little less, because they find a situation of comfort, explains Dr. Ronald Tolchin, Medical Director of the Baptist Health Center for Spine Care.
He also says it depends on if somebody has back conditions. In the mornings, people who have it report they wake up with stiffness in their back, difficulty moving and the pain is sharp and aching.
When the bones are inflamed from arthritis, the muscles get tight and inflamed as well, the doctor affirms.
Transcript
How would you describe the pain for this kind of arthritis, and how do you know right off the bat you see a patient I know they have osteoarthritis?.> So the pain is usually a sharp type of pain with movement, and when they get in certain positions that movement that pain gets a little less, for example they could find a position of comfort , so it’s dependent on position, it’s dependent on time of day when you first wake up in the morning almost everyone who has back conditions tells me they wake up with stiffness in their back, difficulty moving, they can’t always put an exact descriptor on the pain, but they’ll say it’s sharp, it’s aching kind of pain, and a combination of that is not just the bones we’re talking about but the muscles around it, right because when the bones are inflamed from arthritis the muscles get tight and inflamed as well, so it’s more of a cyclic pattern that first you have your arthritis and the underlying bone and cartilage, then that creates irritation and inflammation, cells come in that are inflammatory cells in the whole area becomes inflamed and so the muscles also become irritated and inflamed, so they get that achiness in the muscles as well, so you have a combination of sharp pain with movement, achiness with different positions and sometimes you could stretch that out and make it feel better, and sometimes just getting along with your day first twenty or thirty minutes once you start moving around, it starts feeling a little I’m feeling better those are typically descriptors for arthritic conditions.