Hi Everyone!

SmallClanger

Hi all!

I've been lurking for a little while, but I have a specific question so now feels like the time to get involved.

I had on OA diagnosis about 4 years ago. It is so far limited to my fingers, mainly the distal joints, resulting in loss of range of movement and general stifffness. I'm a regular climber (at a local gym) and I've been able to manage a 2-hour session with only some stiffness. A couple of times recently, however, I've had to cancel or abandon sessions because one joint would become particularly inflamed and painful. I love climbing (I get bored of most exercises and this is one of the few that holds my interest 🙂 ) and I'd hate to have to give it up.

I asked my physio about cortisone, but I broadly agree with her that it's not a good idea for acute pain as the inflammatory response is actually a healing process and it's not a good idea to suppress it over time.

This is my big question: All of the pain relief and supplements I could try have a similar short-term response of reducing imflammation, so does making the right choice really just come down to a personal preference of how much I'm willing to slow down the healing in exchange for temporary relief? Is it that simple a forumla? What other factors to people consider when deciding?

PeterJ

Hello @SmallClanger and welcome to the community. We are a friendly and supportive group and I hope that that will be your experience as well.

I understand that you have osteoarthritis in your fingers and are looking for advice regarding pain relief and inflammation. Our website is a good place to start as it contains a lot of useful information on arthritis, treatments and hints and tips. To help I've put a couple of links in below which might be useful.

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/managing-symptoms/managing-your-pain/

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/exercising-with-arthritis/exercises-for-healthy-joints/exercises-for-the-fingers-hands-and-wrists/

Please do keep posting and let us know how you are getting on and I am sure that others will connect with you to share their thoughts and experiences as well.

With very best wishes

Peter

wazz42

Hi @SmallClanger

The climbing wall sounds great, I've noticed they have opened up a centre a few miles from me, I would have loved it in my younger days!

The exercises you've been pointed to are great, they will keep the muscles/tendons strong as they can be to support your joints. Whatever meds/alternative treatments we use are there to damp down the symptoms because in our case there is damage done that won't heal so I think the question might be do I want to keep up with my activity now when that may mean more pain/damage later or do I want to avoid that now to try and make my joints last longer. It is possibly likely that the same reduction/pain etc will arrive eventually anyway.

I don't know if that's phrased right, but the difficulty phrasing it is similar to the difficulty in making a decision.

I do think though that for every activity you have to give up you need to find a new one to keep yourself enjoying life.

Maybe a chat with the people running the climbing wall, I'm sure you aren't the only one to have this dilemma and maybe they have some advice to help your decision making.

Please let us know how you get on

xx

YvonneH

Hello @SmallClanger

I've just moved this to the living with arthritis area to see if you will get more replies there

YvonneH