The clocks changed on October 25, which means only one thing… winter, and the colder weather, is coming to people across the UK.
For many, the changing seasons bring months of aches, pains, stiffness and discomfort. But help is at hand from Bingham based Oakwood Physiotherapy & Wellness Centre.
Harry Andrews, physiotherapist at Oakwood, shares; “When your grandmother told you her knees could feel rain coming, she wasn’t joking. For many years, cold, rainy and generally miserable weather has been linked to pain in the joints and exacerbations in conditions like arthritis.
“While having these weather prediction abilities may be a neat party trick, the discomfort and pain is real, so we’ve put together our top tips to help Nottinghamshire people combat their cold weather woes.”
- “Wrap up warm with plenty of layers! This sounds simple, but wearing a variety of layers may be the key to prevent cold weather affecting your joints.
- Keep active! Staying mobile will ensure your joints have a healthy blood flow to prevent stiffness and swelling from congregating around those weary joints.
- Improve muscular strength! Improving the strength of muscles around your joints will provide structural support, which can in turn reduce deterioration. Joint surfaces act in a similar way to a sponge, therefore loading a joint with a heavier than usual weight facilitates the removal of inflammatory chemicals.
- Isolate the trigger! Try and identify activities in your daily life that may aggravate symptoms of joint pain and arthritis, most specifically outdoors! This may be as simple as rescheduling your outdoor tasks for a day with better weather (perhaps easier said than done in the UK!)
- Plan your day! ‘Failing to prepare is preparing to fail!’ Ensure you have proactively assessed the weather for the following day ahead and planning tasks and clothing to avoid being caught out in the cold!
- Utilise a flask! Having a warm drink to hand during the cold months may decrease the stress on the thermoregulatory center, potentially decreasing pain and increasing your core body temperature.
- Keep your home warm! The NHS advises that temperatures are kept at a minimum of 18C during the winter.
- Take Vitamin D supplements! In the Winter there is lack of Vitamin D. This can lead to bone pain, muscle aches, muscle cramps, let alone mood changes! Vitamin D is also important to help keep our calcium levels up.
- Seek treatment! As technology continues to rapidly improve within healthcare, it may be relevant to seek external therapies such as shockwave therapy, k-laser, acupuncture and hyaluronic acid injections to manage your painful symptoms.
- Get to the root of your symptoms! MBST continues to successfully stimulate the healing process and regenerate the cells affected in osteoarthritis. Numerous cross sections of joint surface cartilage following MBST continue to display improvements in the strength and durability of the tissue, ultimately leading to reduced pain and improved joint mobility.”
