The Best Life

3 Tips for Living with Join Pain

As you know from my series about joint pain, I've lived with pain for the last 6 years or so. I'm not going to suggest that this time has been easy - but there are a few tips I've learned along the way to reduce the impact it has on your life.

The key is to always try and reduce how much pain you are in - partly because it's just more comfortable, but also because continuous pain isn't going to let your body heal. I don't believe people with joint pain should wrap themselves in cotton wool, but at the same time it's a good idea to minimise pain whenever you can. These tips help you do that.

1. Use Lightweight Home Appliances

House cleaning is never fun, but it's particularly bad when you have joint pain. I used to struggle bending down to clean floors with my knee pain and always hated carrying our bulky vacuum upstairs.

That's when a friend recommended to me that I get a lightweight vacuum. I had a look at some reviews. Lightweight vacuums are the best choice if you've got back or shoulder pain. I chose a cordless model as they seem to be the lightest, but I'm sure there are plenty of good options.

It's not just about vacuums though. Try to choose mops with long handles so you don't need to bend down, steam cleaners so you're not scrubbing all the time and anything else that might make your life easier. There's nothing to be gained from aggravating your joints when there are alternatives available. You could even consider getting a robot vacuum, although I haven't gone this far yet!

2. Keep Your Weight as Low as Possible

This one is tough, because your pain probably prevents you doing a lot of exercise. But if you're overweight, your joints are going to become aggravated faster. I found this out the hard way, but have managed to lose a lot of weight (I put a LOT of weight on after I first started getting pain, as I was used to doing lots of exercise and eating whatever I want).

Don't think you've got to lose crazy amounts though. Even losing 5 pounds might make a difference, especially to your knees.

3. Be Active but WITHIN REASON

It's vital to stay active with joint pain. If you don't, your muscles will get tighter, your weight will increase and the pain will likely get worse. The problem is doing it in moderation.

I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to get back into exercise...started slowly (like I should)...began to enjoy it more as I realise I CAN do at least some exercise...start doing more...end up aggravating all my pain and being forced to stop. I know this happens every time, yet I still keep doing it because I miss sports and activities so much.

In short, stay mobile - but don't push yourself to the point of extra pain. If your pain has increased, it's already too late. ArthritisCare.org.uk have some useful tips for the right type of exercise (it's for arthritis but I think it can be applied to any type of pain).

Do you have any tips for people with joint pain? I'd love to hear from you!

Part 2: Living With Joint Pain Continued

I left the last post after having surgery on both knees. Unfortunately, this didn't help my knee pain - I'm actually pretty sure it made it worse.

And to add to the problems, I started to notice pain in my adductor region in the hip. This started in my right hip, but within a couple of days had spread to the left.

At first I ignored it - I just assumed I'd tweaked a muscle and that it would get better. As you've probably guessed...it didn't.

I was still having physiotherapy for my knees at the time, so I mentioned it to the physio. He thought it was adductor tendonitis and prescribed some eccentric exercises, which seemed to help a bit but not for long. Just like the knee pain, the adductor pain had reached a certain level and then stopped getting worse - but it wasn't getting better either.

By this point I was despairing. I decided to focus on getting the hip pain better first, as I'd already tried everything for my knees without success. I had a contrast MRI, X-ray, numerous consultations with physios, sports doctors and various other professionals. No-one could come up with anything that helped.

At one point, a sports doctor was convinced I had a labral tear in both hips. If you don't know what this is, it's basically a small tear in the cartilage surrounding the hip joint. The strange thing was that they couldn't explain why it wasn't showing on MRI (it usually does) and what would have caused it in both hips simultaneously. Even so, they wanted me to have surgery on one hip at a time, each with a 6 month recovery period and a low chance of ever being able to play sport again!

This is another example of a major problem in the healthcare industry. Some professionals are far too trigger happy and, with the best intentions, do more harm than good. Looking back, I cringe at how close I was to going through with that surgery. Fortunately, the surgeon was less convinced than the sport doctor and advised me not to do it.

In the end, the diagnosis that made most sense was a small hernia in both groins. It still didn't really fit the symptoms, but it was a relatively minor keyhole surgery. I had that around four years ago, and it first it seemed to help. The pain came back gradually though...and in the long run it hasn't helped.

Once again, this isn't the end of the story. Shortly after the surgery, I began to develop tendon pain in other areas of my body. But this post is already too long, so I'll leave it for next time.

Part 1: Living With Joint Pain

This is quite a personal topic, so this post might be a bit longer than normal.

Ever since I was 20, I've suffered with tendon pain in multiple joints. It seems like every year I pick up pain in a new area. And the existing pain never seems to go away.

The result is that I've had to gradually adapt my activity levels to cope with pain, which is frustrating. But what's even worse is the lack of help I've received from medical professionals.

My Joint Pain Story

The pain started in both knees. I played a lot of football back then, and began doing some running in the off-season. This wasn't anything strenuous - just a 20 minute run every other day - and made sure to warm up and stretch.

What was interesting was that the pain started above both knees at the same time. Looking back, this was a sign that this was more than just overuse, as every pain I have had since has always appeared on both sides of the body.

At this stage, I just thought I had runners knee. I went to physio after physio, none of which could fix me. Eventually, I ended up seeing an orthopaedic surgeon, who recommended an exploratory arthroscopy.

This was eight years ago - so you can tell the surgery didn't do much to help. I'm still extremely angry about it now. Knowing what I do today, I would never let a surgeon just operate without any idea what was going on, but I was desperate to go back to playing the sports I loved.

Around six months after the knee surgery, I resigned myself to the fact that it hasn't worked. It was at this stage that I started travelling far and wide to physiotherapists with the best reputations. I had almost every type of treatment - steroid injections, custom orthotics, strengthening regimes (sometimes up to an hour a day), injections to harden the fat pad - and nothing helped.

I think what became clear to me during this time was that the medical industry is nowhere near as knowledgeable as they would like you to think. 

When I went to a physio, I was given strengthening exercises and stretches. When I went to a surgeon, I was recommended surgery. When I went to a podiatrist, I was given custom orthotics.

At no stage did I receive a clear diagnosis, because no-one ever found a problem - even with MRIs and X-rays. Yet NONE had a problem prescribing expensive, sometimes dangerous treatments!

It's crazy that these professionals are so ensconced in their own specialities that they don't seem to actually look at the problem. Instead, they have a set of treatments which they use for everyone - whether it's applicable or not.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story. Shortly after my knee surgery, I began developing tendon pain in the adductor attachments in the hip. Again, it was both sides of the body - except this time I wasn't doing any sport to trigger it. And it started another set of treatments, with a timeline eerily similar to the knee pain.

But that's a story for the next post.