Weight loss can also be concerning. This may indicate that your condition is worsening or the medication you are taking is adversely affecting your metabolism. Some of the medication taken for the treatment of inflammatory forms of arthritis can cause stomach nausea and other conditions that may lead to a suppressed appetite. Weight loss may be a side effect of this problem. Also a complication with some forms of treatment may lead to weight loss; muscle wasting and bone loss. Therefore everyone should try to maintain a well balanced diet and get plenty of weight bearing activity in there daily routine.

Sleep deprivation is also another health concern for people who have arthritis. The cause of sleep disturbance can vary from pain, stiffness, medication complications, muscle spasms, and chemical imbalances in the brain. Whatever the cause, it is important to identify it and take some positive steps toward reducing the effects. The pain and stiffness can be caused by the disease process and can be somewhat elevated by activity, medication, heat, cold, massage or a combination of several of these treatment options. If your medication is the problem, then reviewing your medication with your doctor may be of help. Sometimes eating something to coat the stomach before taking the night dose of medication can reduce the ill effects. Whatever the cause, getting a good night sleep is very important for the body to repair itself and to have the stamina to meet the demands of a daily routine.

Another area that should be evaluated is function. Has function been maintained throughout the year? If function has been lost, then you need to find out why and what can be done to regain that function or compensate for it. If the function is something like going up and down stairs or getting in and out of a car, those can usually be improved with some proper strength training and the use of assistive devices. If loss of function is due to a joint deformity then corrective splints or supportive devices can be helpful. Maintaining function is vital to remaining independent. Staying functional is something that people with arthritis have to work on continually. Continuing with therapy exercises when the formal therapy is over or joining an exercise class structured for people with arthritis can help maintain and often times ever improve someone function. But to remain as functional as possible involves daily work.

How has social activity changed? Do you continue to keep an active social life or have you started to give up some old familiar activities? It is important to try and sustain an active social life. Being socially active keeps a person from centering all their thoughts and actions on their disease. Socializing is a form of distraction. It can also be a source of pleasure from doing activities that make people happy. It gets people out of the house and involved in society instead of focusing on them selves. This creates a healthy attitude toward every day life.

What are the expectations for the coming year? It might be a good time to sit down and decide what things or tasks, or projects are important to accomplish in the next 12 months. That may include moving to a new residence where every day functioning would be easier, improving on your eating habits to help maintain a good body weight, planning a vacation now instead of waiting for a couple years down the road, making some home improvements that will enable you to remain more functional, or taking on a new exercise program that will prepare you for some activity you been wanting to do, like hiking or rock climbing or skiing. This is a great time to set a timetable up and figure out what you need to do on a weekly or daily basis to reach your goals. Maybe you will need to readjust your schedule or rearrange your daily routine to meet the demands of your new goals. Once you have your schedule organized than try to stick to it as closely as possible. Then when January of 2010 rolls around you will be able to look back and feel great about all that you have accomplished during the year. And if you have been conscientious about sticking with your plan, I am sure you will be feeling better and functioning better with your arthritis.

How effective is your medical therapy in controlling symptoms? Have you been able to reduce your weight if that was a concern? How are your sleeping and eating habits? What is your activity level like compared to a year ago? What is your social life like today? What are your expectations for the coming year concerning your arthritis?

Arthritis, like many of the other chronic conditions people get, can drastically affect your life. Since most forms of arthritis are progressive, each person must establish management plans to help control symptoms and slow the progression of the disease. When our lives are full and busy, it is sometimes hard to establish a plan and even harder to stick to it once established. But like most things in life whether it is a job, a task around the house or simply a chore that needs to be done, we need to do some planning to include these activities into our day or the jobs won’t get done. The same concept applies with managing a chronic disease. Without a plan the job rarely gets done and your health and welfare will suffer.

So, how does one go about establishing a plan to manage arthritis? The first thing to do is sit down and assesses your present condition. Write down the answers to some of the questions above to help you decide where you need to do some work. In some areas, you may just need to make some minor adjustments, but in other areas you may need to do more work. This is the reason you write these things down, so later on you can review you’re “to do” list and see how much you have accomplished.

Now lets take a look at some key areas that should be included in your management plan and how you can improve upon them.

Evaluate your present condition. Has the arthritis progressed into other joints? If you have an inflammatory form of arthritis it is not uncommon for the disease to continue to progress into more joints as time goes on. If you are having symptoms in additional joints, this may be an indication that your medical therapy may need some adjustment. It also may indicate you are over stressing the unaffected joints to relieve the discomfort of the affected joints. Since most inflammatory forms of arthritis do progress you will most likely not be able to avoid this completely, but hopefully you would have some impact on slowing the progression. If you have been taking the same medicines for several years to relieve the symptoms of your arthritis, you might want to make a visit back to your doctor for a new evaluation. In the past couple of years several new medications have become available to help control the symptoms and the progression of some forms of inflammatory arthritis.

Using your joints wisely can also reduce the chance of overstressing the unaffected joints. Try to maintain good posture throughout the day. Use correct form for bending and lifting. Maintain a neutral joint position when doing tasks that require holding positions for long periods of time. Try to change body positions often to avoid becoming stiff or developing spasms in surrounding muscles.

to be continued…