Morning stiffness is one of the signs of inflammation in a patient who has rheumatoid or any other autoimmune arthritis.
The most important measure to really control the morning stiffness in joints is that we drink our medicines, prescribed by our rheumatologist, on a regular basis.
But since the treatments take at least, at the very least, six to eight weeks, to kick in and to start feeling an improvement in the stiffness in the joints, we will now tell you what you can do during those weeks to deal with your morning stiffness..
The first thing you will do, you will go to bed early, and you will drink the NSAID, the anti-inflammatory painkiller medication, that had been prescribed by your rheumatologist after your last meal.
You will apply ice packs to the most troublesome joints before you go to bed and also apply some anti-inflammatory gel to those joints after that.
Then you will also use hot packs to those same joints when you rise in the morning before you start your daily routine.
During the day, it is advisable to do all your daily tasks and activities at a slower pace than you used to before you got this arthritis, because too much stress to the joints at this stage when our disease is not yet under control might increase the inflammation and its symptoms, the pain, the swelling if any and the stiffness.
If there is a specific joint that has more severe symptoms, your doctor will give you tailored advice for that particular joint too.
As the treatment you are using works gradually over the course of the weeks, the morning stiffness will also gradually decrease.. and the other symptoms as well in the joints, and we will be able to return to our normal activities very gradually.
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This post was prepared and published by Dr. Hatem Eleishi. Dr. Hatem Eleishi is a professor of rheumatology at Cairo university (Egypt) and is especially dedicated to supporting arthritis patients with online educational videos and articles about arthritis causes and treatment. He also runs a rheumatology clinic in Cairo and a center for online medical consultations that, in addition to providing online rheumatology consultations, also provides online medical consultations in several different medical specialties by expert consultants from Egypt, Canada and the United States.
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