The first thing that one needs to learn when dealing with arthritis pain is to be able to manage it. Whether your pain is excruciating or merely a minor bother, it is not fun.

Even though there are several ways to describe the pain, there are generally two kinds of pain: "acute" which would have a sudden onset and vanish within a few minutes and "chronic" the most painful and longest lasting. Whereas acute pain serves a purpose (protecting body from danger, alerting yourself to things like nails, fire, etc.) chronic pain is a benefit-less nuisance.

When this pain is from arthritis it is often caused by inflammation, a localized protective reaction of tissue to irritation, injury, or infection characterized by pain, redness, swelling, and sometimes loss of function.

A damaged joint can also cause pain through crepitation; the rubbing together of bone fragments that cause crackling or popping sounds.

Pain can also come from Muscle tension, strained muscles, and fatigue. The tension from affected muscles can cause undue stress on other muscles that are trying to compensate for the afflicted ones. This is dubbed as "Strained supporting tissues". In time both the strained muscle structures, and those trying to compensate for them can tire and cause "Fatigue", often exacerbating the pain.

Pain Solutions

Now let's look for the solutions to dealing with this pain.

Methods that you can do in your home to bring relief without the use of drugs would include some or all of the following.

• Massage Therapy
  
• Hydrotherapy
  
• Cold and Heat packs
  
• Supplementing your diet with glucosamine
  
• Relaxation
  
• Magnet Therapy
  
• NSAIDs (watch out for side effects)
  
• Cox-2 inhibitors (also be wary of side effects)
  

J.R. Rogers is the founder and President of Activex America, Inc. makers of Liquid Glucosamine Formula Syn-flex®