The joints of the hands and feet hurt, what should I do? Pain in the joints of the legs and hands: causes and treatment

If the joints of the hands and feet hurt, what should a person do in such a situation? Of course, the first thing that comes to your mind is to go to the clinic and see the local doctor, and he will know what is what: prescribe tests or refer you to a specialist. However, many of us know how difficult it can be to find time to go to a medical facility, because in order to do this, you will have to take time off from work, and then most likely sit in line there or prepare a certain amount of moneyfor a visit to a paid medical center.

In general, people have many reasons for self-medication at home. And it's not so rare that it really helps. Well, in our article you will find several folk recipes that help with various types of joint pain, as well as a list of pharmacological drugs specifically designed to solve such problems. But first, we advise you to seriously read the next chapter of our story.

The importance of getting the right diagnosis

Asking everyone they meet: "If the joints of the hands and feet hurt, what should you do? "", people often do not understand that the pain that worries them can be the initial stage of a serious disease, the development of which can be stopped or slowed down in the initial stage, when the destructive processes in the joints have not yet gone too far.

Conducting self-treatment using lotions, rubs, paws, etc. , A sick person puts his health at considerable risk. After all, home remedies are not that safe at all and may be contraindicated in certain diseases.

For example, there is an opinion that to quickly solve joint problems there is nothing better than warming up. But this is not true at all! If the disease is accompanied by swelling, acute inflammatory processes occur in the diseased joints and a local increase in temperature is observed, then the application of heat to the problem area can only worsen the situation. If the joints of the hands and feet hurt, the causes, symptoms and treatment regimens should first be discussed with specialists (rheumatologist, orthopedist or traumatologist).

We will not criticize folk remedies here: they can be an excellent help in the fight against various diseases, but only after the doctor makes the correct diagnosis and gives recommendations on what can benefit the joints and what will harm.

Various causes of joint pain

Why the joints hurt and what to do in these cases will be much easier to understand if you know about the causes that cause pain, pain in the limbs and limitation of their motor functions. Here are some of the most common joint diseases:

1. Rheumatoid arthritis.A chronic disease in which inflammatory processes are observed in the connective tissue. Characteristic symptoms accompanying arthritis:

   • The pain in one or more joints increases gradually over one to two weeks or may come on suddenly. At rest, the pain increases, especially in the morning.
   • Rheumatoid arthritis can affect both the large joints of the hands and feet (wrist, ankle, elbow, knee) and the small joints of the feet and hands. Inflammation of one joint is called monoarthritis, and inflammation of several joints is called polyarthritis.
   • One of the symptoms of the disease in question is limited mobility of the affected limbs during the first hours after waking up in the morning.
   • The disease is accompanied by a noticeable enlargement of the joints, redness of the skin in the problem area and increased sensitivity.

2. rheumatism.This chronic disease gradually affects all organs (heart, kidneys, lymphatic system, etc. ), including the joints. The process can take many years. It is very important to start treatment as early as possible. One of the most characteristic signs of incipient rheumatism is pain in the joints that appears periodically, sometimes accompanied by increased body temperature and swelling.

3. Arthrosis.A disease associated with dystrophic-degenerative changes occurring in cartilage, with the gradual involvement of bone, ligament and synovial tissues in the pathological process. The most common arthrosis is of the knee, hip and elbow joints. Main symptoms:

   • the main symptom is pain that occurs when moving or loading the affected joint;
   • gradual limitation of mobility. If the disease is not treated in time, the process can progress quickly, which will eventually lead to disability.

4. Injuries, bruises, physical overload of the joints.

5. gout- one of the types of arthritis.

The joints of the hands and feet hurt: what to do?

Let's outline the main steps that should be taken sequentially in case of joint pain:

1. Before you find out the causes of the pain, you should try to rest the joints.
2. Take a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug.
3. Contact a medical facility to find out the causes of the pain.
4. Get detailed recommendations from your doctor about the treatment regimen and medications to take, as well as advice on traditional treatment methods if you will be using them.

Treatment of arthritis

Arthritis is most often severe pain in the joints of the hands. What should we do in this situation? The patient must understand that the treatment will require a number of complex measures. After all, it is necessary not only to relieve symptomatic pain, but also to slow down the inflammatory process, restore normal blood flow in the affected tissues and cartilage, etc. For this purpose, the doctor may prescribe, in addition to non-steroidal antibiotics-inflammatory drugs, antibiotics. Within this article we can give an excellent recipe from traditional medicine.

A honey and cabbage compress is very useful for arthritis. You should do it before going to bed. You need to take a fresh cabbage leaf, heat it, smear it with a thin layer of honey and apply the smeared side to the sore spot. On top, the compress is covered with cellophane, bandaged and wrapped with a warm woolen scarf. In the morning, the patient will certainly feel relief.

The role of proper nutrition

The joints of the feet and hands often hurt due to metabolic disorders in the body. The disease gout is one of the types of arthritis, a frequent companion of modern people, especially tormenting the stronger sex. Probably everyone has heard this term: "deposition of salts in the joints". Some people think that it is ordinary table salt, but this is not so.

In gout, uric acid salts are deposited in the joints and this is due to the constant consumption of meat, oily fish and alcohol. Smoking also contributes to the development of the pathological process. If the joints of your fingers and toes become very swollen and painful, then perhaps the discomfort indicates the presence of gout.

This disease is easier to prevent than to treat. The main recommendation to prevent the disease is proper nutrition. Nothing complicated: you need to introduce more vegetables, whole grain cereals, fruits, cottage cheese into your diet and give up smoking and alcoholic beverages.

Osteoarthritis. Treatment

Today, many people complain that they have pain in the joints of their hands and feet. What to do if the pain is caused by arthrosis? Here, too, you most likely cannot do without NSAIDs: they will help to quickly relieve the torment. A doctor's consultation is necessary. An X-ray will need to be taken - it will help the doctor determine the extent of joint destruction.

In the treatment of arthrosis, along with anti-inflammatory drugs, the intake of chondroprotectors (substances that restore joint cartilage) plays an important role.

A good alternative natural chondroprotector is plain gelatin, which can be purchased in stores. This product should be diluted in warm water and drunk several times a day. And for the fastest cartilage recovery, it is recommended to prepare homemade jelly or jellied meat more often, it also contains large amounts of natural substances from which cartilage tissue is made.

Pharmaceutical products

Several times, when we mentioned in our article the question "what to do if the joints of the hands and feet hurt", we wrote that pain and inflammation are well relieved by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs for short. In the treatment of joints, ointments from this group are veryeffective.

For severe pain, you can go beyond simple external ointments and take highly effective NSAIDs in the form of tablets or powders.

Physiotherapy

If the painful joint pain persists, the doctor may consider that it is necessary for the patient to undergo some physical procedures:

• UHF;
• phonophoresis or electrophoresis;
• UV radiation;
• magnetic therapy;
• transcutaneous electrical stimulation;
• paraffin baths and applications, etc.

Treatment of joints with ointments prepared according to traditional recipes

We continue to consider the main topic of the article: "What to do if your joints hurt? ""Treatment with self-made ointments can be an excellent addition to the procedures prescribed by a doctor. What are these medicines and how to make them?

1. Ointment for rheumatism.To prepare it, you will need 100 g of mustard powder and 200 g of table salt, which must be mixed together, then add enough kerosene to the resulting mixture of mustard and salt to get a mass similar to the thickness of country sourdoughcream. The medicine is rubbed into the sore areas at night.
2. Ointment for arthritis of honey and egg yolks.Take an egg yolk, a block of beeswax (a little) and 1 tablespoon of honey. First, the yolk is heated in a water bath, in which the wax is crushed and the honey is poured. Everything is mixed until a homogeneous ointment is obtained. For use, take a piece of gauze folded in several layers, place a hot mass on it, and in this form, the medicine is applied to the joint and firmly fixed with a bandage.
3. Ointment for the treatment of joints with arthrosis.Take equal parts of nettle leaves, juniper berries (green) and sheep oil. The fruits and leaves are thoroughly pounded in a mortar and then mixed with oil. The prepared ointment should be rubbed into the joints in the morning and evening.

Treatment with activated carbon

There is a simple but effective way to treat gouty joints. To do this, you will need activated carbon. You will need to make a paste of this product. This is done in the following way: tablets from several packages of coal are ground into powder, to which a little water and 1 tablespoon of crushed linseed are added. After thorough mixing, the porridge is smeared on the diseased joint overnight, after which it is bandaged and wrapped warmly until the morning.

Clay therapy

Here is another excellent folk method of treatment if the joints of the legs and hands hurt. We have already discussed the causes and treatment of many diseases and found that different diseases should be treated differently. But there is one almost universal recipe - compresses, baths, clay wraps, which can be used for arthrosis, arthritis and rheumatic pains. Clay perfectly soothes pain, relieves inflammation and swelling, sucks toxins from the body, etc.

Physical education and sports: benefits or harms for joints

Those who are too keen on sports activities often have joint pain. What should you do if your knees and ankles hurt after long, grueling runs that seem to be done in the name of health? First, review your lifestyle. Any excess is harmful - this statement can also be applied to sports.

To get rid of the feeling of constant discomfort in the joints of the legs, sometimes it is enough for a person to simply reduce physical activity. Jogging or walking (for the elderly), morning exercise, yoga and swimming are useful for improving health. All of the above are unlikely to cause pain in your joints. On the contrary, such physical training will fill them with strength and endurance.

A final word

We hope that the information presented in the article will help those who have pain in the joints of the hands and feet. Diseases and methods of treatment, folk recipes and a list of medicines - all these materials were carefully studied by us in advance and only then were exposed for public viewing. Use this information for your health and let your joints always be normal!