by Lorelei Cohen

Created on: May 03, 2008

For anyone who suffers from Arthritis, chronic pain and fatigue can be the most disabling aspects of this illness. There were nights when the pain of my illness was so severe that despite the many painkillers that I ingested I was still awake more than I slept. The pain continuously jolted me awake throughout the night and there was just no reprieve from the constant and unrelenting horror that is Arthritis. But that was thankfully yesterday and today I live a much different lifestyle. I have combined numerous alternative therapies along with my physician prescribed program and it works to give me a quality of life that I had previously thought was forever lost.

Where Arthritis is concerned knowledge is indeed power. There are over 100 forms of arthritis, and although each illness is unique to itself, all unfortunately come with some degree of inflammation and pain. In order to battle your illness, you must empower yourself with as much knowledge on your illness as you are able to acquire, you must fight this silent enemy on its own terms.

Allow yourself to adapt to being the new person that you now are. You are not the same person that you were before you became ill so do not expect your body to be able to accomplish all the tasks that it was able to when it was healthy. Adjust your lifestyle to accommodate your new pattern of living. Allow time for regular periods of exercise or range of motion therapy. Adapt to lighter less joint stressful forms of exercise such as swimming, yoga and walking. Treat rest as a form of therapy, and use it accordingly, set aside regular rest breaks throughout the day as people with Arthritis are more prone to symptoms of fatigue than healthier individuals.

With inflammatory illnesses never doing too much or too little of any activity seems to reduce the stress or inflammation involved. Learn to live life in bits and pieces, or a little of this and a little of that, never doing too much or too little of any one activity at any one time period. Alternating exercise and rest periods throughout the day greatly helps to reduce the pain and inflammation of Arthritis.

Allow yourself a twenty minute period of total rest during the day. You don't have to sleep during this time allotment, you just have to lie down, and do absolutely nothing! This short rest period is amazing for the amount of energy that it will give you. It will allow you to enjoy the remainder of your day rather than just existing through it.

Budget your energy out throughout

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