Living with the daily aches and pains of arthritis can be a rather draining experience, both emotionally and physically.
In fact, according to the CDC, roughly 23% of American adults are afflicted by this ailment, with symptoms ranging from mild inflammation and swelling to painful and impairing stiffness of the joints.
In this article, we’ll discuss simple lifestyle choices to curb your arthritis pain, as well as how the food you eat can affect your symptoms, and which foods might be making your arthritis worse.
Living with Arthritis
Unlike other ailments, arthritis isn’t a one-time come and go kind of pain. It’s not as simple as just ripping off a Band-Aid.
No, arthritis is something that, once it comes, it’s there for the long term.
However, that doesn’t mean you have to live your life suffering.
According to arthritis.org, there are 4 simple lifestyle practices one can keep in order to manage arthritis and prevent its exacerbation. They are:
- Taking proper medication
- Managing one’s weight
- Staying active and exercising
- Keeping a positive mindset and avoiding stress
How Diet Affects Arthritis
In addition to the above mentioned 4 practices, carefully monitoring your diet can make a huge impact in pain management.
Now, when we talk about “diet” here, we don’t mean how much cake you should eat or whether eating breakfast will help you lose weight or not. We mean diet in the sense of what types of foods you’re eating.
It’s widely accepted now that certain foods have healing properties that can improve your gut health and other bodily functions, while other foods can harm your gut health and reduce efficiency in the body.
With that in mind, it’s important to consider the composition of what you’re eating: nutrients, fats, oils, vitamins, acids, etc. Learn which foods are good for your arthritis and which foods might make your arthritis pains worse, so that you can keep your health in check with what you eat.
10 Surprising Foods that Might Be Harmful to Your Arthritis
Researchers have found that it’s not just what you eat, it’s also what you don’t eat that can affect your arthritis pains.
Here are 10 surprising foods that might just make your arthritis pain worse.
- Tomatoes
- Eggplant
- Potatoes
- Organ meat
- Scallops
- Mussels
- Vegetable oil
- Sunflower oil
- Beer
- Foods cooked at high temperatures
Keeping Track of Your Diet
If you’re having trouble keeping track of which foods might help your arthritis and which foods might harm your arthritis, consider keeping a food diary.
With a food diary, you can track what you’re eating, when you’re eating, and when your arthritis pains seem to flare up.
You might be surprised at the simple patterns you find when you write it all down. For instance, you might notice that your finger pain acts up on days after you’ve eaten tomatoes, but seems to be fine during weeks when you didn’t eat any.
And, when you think you’ve found a pattern, take your findings to your regular physician and discuss a dietary course of action.
Contacting Angels On Call Home Care you can always be sure that our nurses and caregivers will always help you to maintain the necessary and high-quality nutrition in case of arthritis, taking care of your health and your peaceful and calm life!
Call us today to get our help: 1-888-432-1070
