Month of May is Osteoarthritis/ Joint Awareness Month
Osteoarthritis
What is it?
A non-inflammatory degenerative joint disease causing progressive degeneration of the cartilage that covers the bones in joints.
Symptoms
- Behavior changes – cannot go up stairs very well, moving from a sitting to a standing position very well, weekend warrior syndrome, cannot lift leg to urinate anymore, lose balance, etc.
- Pain – the resulting discomfort from the bony changes in the joints and destruction of the cartilage
- Crepitation – grating or cracking sensation or sound from severe arthritic changes in a joint
- Hip Pain – pain that is present in the hips or lower back and can present as a hind limb limp or “bunny hop”
- Joint Pain – pain present in the other joints that can present as a limp or walking on three legs (elevating 1 leg off the ground)
- Atrophy – loss of muscle mass due to disuse of a limb from chronic pain
Treatments
- Plenty of exercise (swimming) and decrease weight if obese
- Diets : Purina JM or Hill’s Science Diet J/D
- Joint Supplements – (helps repair cartilage and increase synovial production(joint fluid)): glucosamine, chondriotin, Adequan
Pain medication : Rimadyl, Metacam, Previcox, Etogesic, etc.
Surgical : joint specific surgical alteration, for example total hip replacement
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