Three tips for improving your daily life when you have chronic joint pain

There are many difficulties that people with chronic joint pain face every day. Many find walking painful and harder to do. Others have trouble sitting down in a chair or on their bed. Also, people with this type of pain often find bending down to grab objects challenging. 

If these sound like challenges your joint pain presents, you aren’t alone. Nearly half of the Americans with osteoarthritis have persistent joint pain, and osteoarthritis is one of the most common sources of long-term joint pain. Physical therapists can offer many tips and tricks that can help you improve your daily life when you have chronic joint pain. They can also help you find ways to reduce your pain. 

These three tips can help improve the daily lives of people with chronic joint pain

Therapy specialists are trained to understand and treat the musculoskeletal system, and this includes the body’s joints. This knowledge also gives physical therapists insight into ways you can improve your daily life if you have chronic joint pain. 

Some of the tips that your physical therapist could recommend include: 

1. Moving around after you get up — Often, joints are more painful first thing in the morning. In part, this is because they’ve been in one position while you were sleeping. Many people find that joint pain decreases when they do some light stretches or exercises right after waking up.

2. Taking frequent breaks — Although many people are determined to push through joint pain, doing so can actually increase the pain. Moving too far or for too long tires out muscles that support the joints. As a result, these muscles provide less joint support, which can increase pain. So if you start to feel tired or sore while moving around, take a short break. You may find you have less pain and actually get more done in the long run. 

3. Finding better ways to do normal daily tasks — Your physical therapist can be a useful resource for learning alternate ways to do normal daily tasks. For instance, they can show you how to use a grabber to pick up objects. This helps you avoid bending that might increase your joint pain. 

Find ways to better manage your chronic joint pain at SSOR

Want to learn more about how physical therapy can help you better manage your chronic joint pain? Our team at SSOR is ready and willing to help you learn what you need to accomplish this. We can evaluate your joints to determine if you have underlying issues increasing your pain. In addition, our physical therapists excel at building individualized therapy plans intended to reduce joint pain and improve your mobility. 

Want to get physical therapy from home? No problem! Our team offers at-home care and virtual therapy services that are designed to be used right in your home. Even better, you can use any of the therapy services we offer if you don’t have a referral from your doctor.

Contact us today for more information about how we can help treat your joint pain or to schedule an initial appointment.