proactive steps to start easing your aches—and protect yourself against
more pain later STORY BY AMY BRAYFIELD
for the more than 46 million people in the United States living with arthritis, life means some amount of pain most days, and, for some, every day. With so many millions affected, it’s little surprise to hear that arthritis is the top cause of disability in the U.S. Even if you’re dealing with it yourself, you may not realize that joint pain is a symptom in over 100 distinct medical conditions, all of which fall under the broad umbrella of arthritis. And maybe you don’t know that that persistent ache costs us, as a country, roughly $128 billion annually in medical care and indirect costs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That makes arthritis among the biggest healthcare problems in the U.S, outranked only by diabetes and heart disease. It’s not a static problem, either, says Kevin Fontaine, Ph.D., assistant professor of rheumatology in the depart- ment of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. “The number of people living with arthri- tis is growing by 750,000 people each year, and as the population gets older that number is just going to get bigger. The implications in terms of medical, economic and quality-of-life issues are enormous.” Unlike big killers such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, though, arthritis is anything but silent. Patients describe it as sharp, stabbing, achy, intense, throbbing—and notoriously hard to treat. “It’s always there,” says Pat Conger, 68, who has been living with osteoarthritis (OA) in her right wrist and hand for a decade. “Sometimes it’s just a dull ache that feels kind of like having a cramp, and sometimes it’s so bad it feels like someone stuck a thousand pins in my hand every time I move it even a little bit.”
That’s the bad news. Here’s some encouraging news: If you have arthritis you know that analgesics