Selecting Complementary Therapies

One of the most difficult things to accept about arthritis is that there's no cure - not yet, anyway. Not only that, but, for some people with some forms of arthritis, current therapeutic strategies simply aren't as effective as they'd like them to be. You may have stuck to your prescribed treatment plan with complete faithfulness for what seems like an eternity - and you're still experiencing severe levels of pain, reduced physical function and decreasing mobility. Well, then, what about trying something else? What about all of those other approaches that your doctor hasn't tried? What have you got to lose by trying one?

That's a question that doctors deal with practically every day, and there's no easy answer. Some doctors may encourage or support your use of a complementary therapy - providing it's safe and doesn't reduce the potential effectiveness of their prescribed treatment. The problem is, some complementary therapies aren't safe. Plus, if you ignore your prescribed treatment plan to try one, you could be doing yourself out of the benefits - however small they may seem to you at the time - that a long-term therapeutic strategy can provide.

There are a number of alternative or complementary therapies that may offer real benefits to some people with arthritis, and increasingly these days, doctors and scientists are accepting that some of these previously dismissed therapies merit investigation. Some of these therapies in fact - such as acupuncture - have been embraced by a good number of physicians and are being used widely by patients.

The results, however, are highly individual, and not all complementary therapies have equal validity. Before you try anything outside your treatment plan, learn what you can about these things. Then talk to your doctor about them.

This page was last reviewed/updated on : 05/20/2010