Strengthen your joints with these natural remedies

Have you ever felt an excruciating pain whenever you lifted your left arm right above your head? It is quite common among people over 45 years of age. Similarly, as you grow older, the fluid in the joints dries up causing the bones to clash with each other. That can be extremely painful. This condition has a painful sounding name as well, osteoarthritis. Usually, you find older people feeling this stiffness in their knees first. It is also known as Sandhivata in Ayurvedic circles. Osteophytosis is also a condition you usually associate with old age. Joint Disease – Causes

There are 3 common causes of joint diseases. We shall look at them in brief.

• Due to injury: Physical injury can cause structural damage to the joints thereby affecting its functioning and causing various diseases.
• Inflammation: Ironically, inflammation is a protective function. But, when it goes out of control, it can lead to damage to the tissues and cause joint pain.
• Degeneration: This is the most common cause of stiffness and joint pain. It is an old age disease where the cartilages lining the bones weaken and wear out causing joint pain and other problems like degenerative arthritis

Ayurveda – The Treatment procedure

Ayurveda is an individualistic treatment in the sense that it has different procedures for inflammatory and degenerative joint diseases.

Inflammatory diseases:

Ayurveda associates inflammation with toxicity. There are three types of toxicity, mild, moderate, and severe. The treatment methods are different in each case.

• Mild toxicity: Light food with warm fluids accompanies by rest
• Moderate toxicity: Use of herbal decoctions to eliminate the toxicity
• Severe toxicity: Ayurveda employs the Panchakarma treatment as well as different kinds of herbal treatment, mainly Guggulu. It uses other methods as well such as Abhyanga (oil massage), Podikkizhi (herbal powder massage), etc.

Degenerative diseases:

Sandhivata and Osteophytosis are degenerative joint diseases. Ayurveda has special treatment procedures such as Tailadhara (pouring medicated oils), Nhavarakkizhi (massage procedure using rice bolus mixed in medicated milk), etc.

Home remedies for joint pain

We shall discuss a few home remedies for osteoarthritis

• Roast fenugreek seeds and crush them. Make a thick paste with lukewarm water and apply on the affected area. Remove it after drying.
• Massage the area with warm sesame oil or mustard oil along with camphor.
• You can also consume Shatavari Ksheera Paka, Ashwagandha, Bala, Laksha, and Arjuna for getting relief from degenerative knee problems

Inference:

Ayurveda has some excellent procedures to strengthen the joints. Having a glass of milk every day can increase the calcium content in the bones thereby protecting it against degeneration.