Online Help for Arthritis

Online guides to arthritis are in the hundreds of thousands. If you google for information about your condition you’ll probably find yourself wading through page after page is web sites for newsletters and hospitals and many others that are simply medical journal articles. It is time-consuming, to say the least. Having had one hip replaced and another to be done soon, I have been researching this awful malady for many years. It affects tens of millions of Americans as I type this. The debilitating effects of this disease ruin lives and cost our economy dearly in terms of production lost from those disabled by this disease.
The most prevalent form of arthritis is osteoarthritis. This form is due to simple daily wear and tear on the joints, whereas rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-immune disease. Osteoarthritis usually occurs in people who are up in age but can be caused by injury to a joint of even from surgery around a joint. It is osteoarthritis I am interested in. All who are experiencing joint pain and want to inform themselves of the possible treatments available and the surgical alternatives would be well-advised to begin educating themselves about their condition before they see a physician. It will prepare them with information to ask pertinent questions and to better understand what the attending physician tells them.

The first step in educating oneself would be to focus on the symptoms and causes. My favorite online tool for this is http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/o/osteoarthritis/intro.htm. The Wrongdiagnosis site is very interesting and easy to navigate. You can find out about your symptoms and what they might mean. It gives some information to guide a person in decisions about what to explain to a doctor. Pain can sometimes present in a part of the body that is not at the afflicted joint. Had I gone to this site I might not have put off my groin pain as simply a pulled muscle and I would have seen a specialist much sooner than I did. It is information like this that will arm a patient with the right questions and information to give a specialist. You can also ask a question if you register for their interactive service. This site covers many, many diseases and conditions other than osteoarthritis as well, so it is a very useful one to save and use quite often for any condition that occurs.
If you do prefer to use google to research your arthritis, keep in mind that the more specific your web search terms are, the more relevant results you will get. Instead of searching for just “symptoms of arthritis” you might search for “groin pain and arthritis.” This would single out specific information as to how groin pain might indicate arthritis of the hip. Another search tool I use to find out things online is www.ask.com . Both google and ask are wonderful, user-friendly sites for searching any information online.

Another site one might find very useful is http://arthritis.about.com/gi/pages/mmail.htm . About.com is a great general site for asking questions and getting answers. They have newsletters on all kinds of ailments and conditions. All you have to do is to register to receive one on your specific condition. http://www.about.com/ is the front page and from the links to the left you can navigate to more and more specific information you want. The arthritis page even has a link for a forum. Forums enable people to register and ask questions and get direct responses, sometimes in just minutes. Just keep in mind that these forums are populated by regular people asking questions and giving advice, not by experts or physicians. I like them because all the people in them are suffering and can give advice based on their personal experience. While a doctor might know technical answers, these people are a “been there, done that” crowd and sometimes have some wonderful suggestions.
Basically there are five general areas of arthritis information: symptoms, medications, alternative medications and therapies, and surgery. Once you have used google, ask, and about, you will have found some sites that you find truly informative and interesting. Over the course of several years I have found some that I use all the time for various purposes.
The following sites are fascinating resources for information on alternative medicine as a way to treat pain and to help build and strengthen the joints. These are probably the most reputable sites on this type of information available and they are all headed by board certified surgeons and doctors, so they are not selling “snake oil.” Many of the medications you will see on them include the same ingredients and you’ll begin to see what herbals and blends are being used the most with the best results.

http://www.blaylockreport.com/About.htm
http://www.wrightnewsletter.com/
Whitaker Wellness
Jonathan Campbell, Natural Therapies for Cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and other Chronic Illness

I also like some other well-respected hospital sites because they give information about treatments and surgeries that are up to date with the latest innovations and research.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/
I also have two sites that I use to order discount supplements and vitamins as well. Once you’ve decided to supplement with nutrients said to help strengthen and to build joints, you can go to these to order. Of the two, I really prefer Swansonvitamins.com because I have used their products and I trust their testing and research. You can’t beat the prices at any drugstore and a lot of money can be saved by ordering from them.
http://www.swansonvitamins.com
www.vitamins.com
I trust that this short guide to online searches for Arthritis questions can help people who may like looking at some sources that I have already dug into and am very familiar with. Remember, the more specific your search query is the greater possibility for finding information that is truly related to your questions.