Article::: Sedentary Lifestyle | Arthritis Information

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Does this also fall under if you are flaring? Does this also fall under if you have chronic swelling?

I exercise by walking, golfing, and now I'll be able to start back with water exercise. If I find one of the exercises is causing pain then I'll stop for awhile and do one of the others. At age 62 I don't force exercising but I do something every other day. Like many of you I feel better when I'm out and about. Lindy

I see my trips to wal-mart as my exercise when I have bad swelling going on, which use to seem like everyday my knees were swelled, and probably was everyday, just some days more swelled than others. I bought a big soft exercise ball, I sit on that and do exercises that i can manage, I swim and walk as far as i can. I have taken up tai chi which is really good. I feel better if i can exercise.I swim laps. I have noticed a big difference in how I feel. I have more energy, hurt less, and more positive attitude. Joonie

you need to speak with you doctor about specific guidelines for YOU. We can give you generalizations but your doctor is familiar with your physical condition and knows whether the swelling id due to damage or inflammation which would change the recommendations.

I am convinced that your own body gives pretty good guidance. Even moving around the apartment seems to help me on a bad day. Yesterday was awful, but I went up and down the stairs twice. I was not asking for about me, I was using me as a reference. I was just wondering if you should still try to do things like the article said if you are flaring or even have chronic swelling or are you causing more damage than it is helping.

Because I know if I am flaring and have swelling in just about all of my joints. I am not going to even attempt to get out of bed much, unless my husband pushes me to go some where with him. But there have been times when I try to not give into the flare or all the swelling going on, but then when I do that, it usually ends up that I hurt myself more than I do just laying around and walking to the bathroom or even kitchen.

Take last October for example: I was in one of my stubborn periods, and I had a lot of swelling and body parts not bending right from swelling and I was just in a bad flare because I had stopped Humira and was only on 5mg of prednisone. I would go to town with hubby and RA shuffle around, I really should not have even been out of the house and trying to walk around now that I think about it. I refused to ride on an electric cart. Then after going "shopping" most of that month with swelled body parts. I developed a new pain in my right hip and eventually had to go to the ER because none of my pain meds I had at home (lortab10 & Darvocet) did not even touch my pain. The only thing that helped that pain and problem was a shot from the ER. Now my right hip is still not right, I still have a tightened muscle in my upper thigh, I can feel it. It did get less tightened when I took those Soma samples, but I am out of those, and they need to be PA'ed before I can get my script filled (working on that).

It is just that I do not want anyone else to make the mistake I did by going and being stubborn and then making things worse, when just laying around the house could have kept me from messing up my right hip so bad. I know it is caused my inflammation of the saciliac joint, but I think that me "walking" around, if you can what I was doing walking, caused more inflammation in that joint.

Some people will tell you that you should go ahead and push through the pain and get out and exercise. Some will tell you to rest and take it easy until the flare calms down. It's whatever works for you. I find that resting and exercising minimally work the best for me when I'm in a flare. You have to find a balance. The worst flare I've ever had kept me housebound for three months and due to lack of movement I developed a pulmonary embolism and almost died. If I had gotten out of the house and just walked or shuffled a small amount I most likely woundn't have developed a clot. This is the reason that I exercise even when flaring. Lindy

But is it reallying helping your joints if you force them to bend when they are not bending right or at all? I can handle the pain, I just have a hard time believeing that with as BIG as my joints swell that me forcing myself to do the simpliest task such as walking is helping my knee joints or even my hips joints. I do it anyways, but in the back of my I just think... "This cannot be helping, but only causing more damage."

If I tried to take it easy and rest like were suppose to when I am swelled, I would be stuck resting ALL the time. I know moving around is critical, but what if your joints just do not move, because there is THAT much inflammation in them?

I guess I am not making what I am trying to say clear or not even hitting on what I am trying to say.

My knees when they swell... they are like your fingers when they swell and do not bend and stik out straight and very limited in the bending and they just do not bend because of that much inflammation in them. That is how my knees are when they decide to swell, which I went for quite some months with them being like that with not many days where they were not swelled like that, which some of them months were when I could not take anything but prednisone.

The way I walk now, is the RA shuffle. The way I walk when my knees are swelled is like how that girl off that episode on Intervention. I am stuck doing the stiff legged walk with both of my knees swell. Of course, I do try to move them, pain is not the issue for me. My issue is that they just do not bend or straighten, that is how it is when my knees swell like I have shown pictures. Some days they bend and straighten a little more than the days before, but if I ever walk around or they will swell back to the way they were and then I am stuck in that rut of waiting for my swelling to go down enough to do a little more. It really is a vicious cycle I go thru when I am not on meds that work for me.

[QUOTE=joonie]

But is it reallying helping your joints if you force them to bend when they are not bending right or at all?

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Joonie

when my knees were at the end all the exercise in the world would not have improved the motion..they were being stopped by severe bone spurring. You should always try to maintain normal activity as much as possible but when the swelling is as bad as you describe it may not be possible without assistance.

If your knee is that bad it may be time to use a cane. A cane will add support to the body, take pressure off the knee and improve that RA shuffle a bit.

But what I was trying to say earlier about exercise and activity is that you are not in the book. The books don't deal with people with severe damage which is what I suspect you have in additin to active disease. Many people can follow the general guidelines of rest vs activity and do wonderfully. At this point in time you are not there. You need guidelines specifically designed for you and your situation. You need to learn what condition each of your major joints are in..until you know you will never know what you can and cannot do safely. Realistially you need a rehab routine. Have you checked to see if there is some kind of home health care physical therapy you are elgible for.

I have an appointment with my GP tomorrow. YAY me! So... I will talk to my GP about it since they are in the same town as me, unlike my RD. So... I will see what she can come up with to help me.

Oh and Buckeye... Thank You.

Oh and you are right, I do have OA in my right knee as well. Now that my swelling is down some and I can feel my kneecaps again and see them. I can see where my right knee cap is pushed down, lack of a better word. So that is probably why my right knee swells soo much bigger than my left, because I have OA swelling to go with it.

I also remember back when I broke my right knee, was not really my knee, but the tip of my tiba, that the bone Dr said I had little to no cartliage in my right knee and was wondering how I was not in any pain from having that little amount of cartliage. And that was 7 years ago, and when my RA was not as active as it is now.

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