Arthritis, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Keep Moving

Hello, Gentle Reader,

In end every post with “be well, do well and Keep Moving.”  But I spend most of my day at the computer, sitting for hours.  What’s to be done?  You probably don’t move all day at your work, either.  I was talking with my hair stylist, suggesting a trip for her family to La Push and Second Beach, and her first question was “How long does it take to get there?”  Riding in the car for anything over an hour is too much sitting for her.  She moves all day long.  So does my renter, a finish carpenter working long hours on high end construction sites. The last thing he wants to do at the end of the day is an exercise program.  He is constantly in motion on his job.

We are all different in our daily routine.  If we want to make a change to our weight, or our stamina, or the comfort in our joints, we need to change it up.  Movement that is different from the routine is the movement that makes a difference in your health quotient.  Keep Moving means different things for different life styles.

Here’s my routine:

6:00 or so    Up, stumble into the kitchen to draw and heat a 16 ounce glass of water and squeeze half a lemon in it.  This wakes up my stomach and helps digestion.

6:30  after a relaxed complete bowel movement (chewing the warm lemon water helps this), I lie down with the Back2Life machine, which gently lifts the pelvis in a passive Feldenkrais type movement.

6:45   a 10 minute yoga routine which includes Cat-Cow movements (see a past post for pictures), Downdog and calf stretches.

7:15   Meditation and early morning writing.

7:40  Breakfast and reading

8:40 approximately, in the office at the computer.

10:15  break for tea and while the kettle boils, visit the chickens to feed them and collect eggs.

More sitting.

What I do is plot the walking I will do each day.  Today I walk a mile to the Uptown Velvet Foam coffee emporium where I will write for a couple hours.  The walk takes me down a steep hill, up another very steep hill and getting home it is the reverse.

How about you?  Can you fit a walk in that includes stairs?  One of the recommended ways to avoid osteoporosis is to climb 200 steps everyday, carrying 10 lbs of weight.

Move to Improve

What are we talking about here?

Everybody knows we need to be physically active.  But if we have arthritis and hurt much of the time, wouldn’t it be better just to find a comfortable position, take our medication and not invite more pain.  Movement makes you hurt, right?

Not necessarily.  In fact the opposite is true.  Trust me.  Get up and move.  Movement can have specific benefits for people with rheumatic or musculoskeletal disease (RMDs).  Those joints that hurt with every step and every bend, will actually hurt more and more WITHOUT moving them.  To keep the motion you have, you must move.  Moving also improves circulation and will help keep other degenerative diseases at bay.

So what can I do? The most appropriate form of activity will depend on a number of factors including the type of RMD you have.  Which joints are affected and how bad is the joint damage?  Articles like this always tell you it is important to consult your doctor or physiotherapist about the type of exercise you need therapeutically, as well as the type of activities you enjoy doing to keep you healthy.  One friend who was just one step from a wheel chair because of her arthritis, did not like any activity.  Her chiropractor told her she just had to find an activity she loved.  She stumbled on a scull, a single racing shell.  She fell in love with the water and rowing.  Got off all her medication.  Began taking a prescribed regimen of food supplements from Shaklee Corp and went on to win world championships in her age group.

Find something you love to do and begin, slowly with guidance.  Don’t stop.

Let’s see what physical activity is.   Physical activity is any form of daily activity that involves movement, rather than sitting or lying still. This could include playing with children, doing housework, walking the dog, gardening etc. Being physically active can release stiffness and lift your mood.  I find that the playing, housework, gardening activities often lead to more stiffness while some form of regulated, prescribed exercise reverses or controls those negative results from just any daily physical activity.  In other words, exercise can make the fun stuff easier.

The term exercise describes planned, structured and repetitive movements that are performed frequently, at a given intensity and for a set duration of time. Exercise can be therapeutic, such as in rehabilitation, or taken as an enjoyable way of improving or maintaining:

§ muscular strength and endurance

§ flexibility and joint mobility

§ motor functions including coordination and balance

§ aerobic capacity and increased energy expenditure, which can help with weight control

§ bone mineralisation contributing to the prevention of osteoporosis

§ mood and self-esteem leading to increased positive attitude

Level of exercise

You have to decide what you can handle.  One person may have an easy time doing water aerobics while another will have to begin slowly and increase intensity. For example, walking, cycling or swimming at a gentle pace (low intensity), might have an aerobic effect (increase your heart rate and breathing) for some people, while others would need to exercise at a moderate to high intensity to experience the same effect. How old are you?  How is your general state of health?  How advanced is your disease?  How regularly have you been exercising?  Are you carrying too much weight?  Begin at a level of exercise that works for you.

Starting out

Always begin gently and build up slowly over time. It is better to do little and often than to try and overdo things and to push yourself too hard when you start exercising.  So many people begin with fervor and peter out after the third day or so.  I believe that dietary changes need to accompany a new exercise program to support your recovery.  Here is an article about foods and supplements that help.

If you do need to stop exercising for any reason, always start again gently and build up slowly. When you reach your desired level of function, you will need to keep up regular activities to maintain this level.

How much exercise

When you repeat activities regularly your body will adapt over time and you will find you can do more with less effort. You may need to change up your program to continue improvement.  People hit a plateau and get frustrated because they are not improving beyond a certain point.  Make little alterations in your routine and your muscles will respond.  It’s the surprise factor in training.

Really.  Regular exercise slows, or may even prevent loss of function due to disease progression.

Ideally, do stretching/flexibility exercises every day, muscle strengthening and endurance exercises two to three times a week and some form of aerobic exercise for 20 minutes three times a week. Mix it up.

The key is to find things you enjoy doing so that being active is something you look forward to and becomes part of your daily life.

Did you know?

The word ‘fit’ comes from:

Frequency – how regularly you exercise

Intensity – how hard you exercise

Time – how long you exercise

Now the word fitness is used to describe health and the ability to meet the demands of a physical task.

 What are we talking about when we say exercise?

 Aerobic / cardiovascular – Exercise that raises the heart rate and breathing, e.g. walking, cycling, swimming, dancing etc. at a moderate or high intensity

 Balance – The ability to control the body’s position when either stationary or moving

 Endurance – How long you are able to exercise at low, medium or high intensity

 Flexibility – The ability of muscles to stretch. Stretching muscles helps to keep them supple and relieves stiffness

 High impact – Exercises where the body weight impacts forcefully against a surface, for example running or jumping

 Low impact – Exercises where there is minimal impact through the joints and pelvic floor or where the body is supported whilst exercising, e.g riding a bicycle or swimming

Mobility – The ability of joints to move through a range of motion

 Posture – Good body alignment

 Strength – The extent to which muscles can exert force by contracting against resistance (e.g. free or fixed weights, bands, moving in water etc)

 Weight bearing joints – Joints that support the weight of your body against gravity when you are upright, i.e. your spine, hips, knees, feet and ankles

 Weight bearing exercises – Exercises where your body is working or moving against gravity, for example walking (swimming is non-weight bearing because the water supports your body weight)  Weight bearing exercises also help maintain bone density and reduce the risk of osteoporosis

I went to the Arthritis Foundation.  Their website has excellent articles about taking control.  This posting borrows  from their pages.

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving, Betsy

Betsy Bell’s Health4u

206 933 1889

Betsy@hihohealth.com

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Oh, my aching hamstrings

Gentle Reader,

What a ski season it is here in the Northwest.  The snow conditions surprise us every Wednesday as my band of 16-24 friends head up to the pass on a big bus (potty included).  It’s a good thing to use this bus company for January and February when the road conditions are dicey and icy.  The bus drivers have gotten stuck twice!  The ladies who ski are mostly over 65.  Yesterday I learned that one companion, a tall, slim brunette with impeccable make up and style is 80.  We are still climbing logging roads and snow plowing down, but we have become partial to the groomed Nordic tracks, of which there are a few.  One of oldest members skis with the blind across the US and Canada.  We do have a special club here with a pair of set tracks for the blind skier and her companion guide.  We often see dog teams, although mid-week is a quiet time to ski.  People-watching happens on Saturday and Sunday.  Yesterday the only viable skiing was on the reclaimed rail road track which snakes its way up from Seattle, through the pass and on East.  Long ago this track was pulled up and remaining bed has become a favorite mountain bike and Nordic ski trail.John Wayne track

Pushing and gliding for 3 hours and 8 miles along this relatively flat track awakened muscles I had not used so strenuously.  This morning I have been on the floor getting the creaks and groans out of my joints-back and hip and knee pain are no fun, nor are arthritis flare-ups.  Several techniques work well.

 

1.  tie a strong flexible tubing around your thighs, squat and walk to the left 20 steps and then to the right. In the picture, the tubing is around the ankles.  I find the tubing stays put better at the thigh.squat walking with tube

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.  Lying on your side with your knees pulls up part way, lift one knee up and then back down in a clam-shell move.  Several reps on each side.Clam shell exercise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  Put one end of the flexible tubing in the door jam and loop the other around your foot.  Stand side ways to the door and take the outside foot, lifting straight legged 10 reps.  Turn and draw the foot away from the door across the body.  This is a classic standing Pilates move.  Change legs and repeat.  Years ago I bought a heavy steel foot stool off Ebay to use for this exercise as it works better if you are standing a few inches off the floor.  Gyms have portable durable plastic steps that can be used.  Personally, my little upholstered foot stool would never be taken for an exercise prop as it sits by the front door.  This is the best picture I could find.  Imagine the end of the theraband as a knotted tube in the door jab, the bottom around your shoe.Hip-abd-with-TB-finish

4.  face the door and, with the foot in the loop of the tubing, push it away from the door while standing erect, in perfect posture, on the other foot.  Several reps on both legs will help.

 

 

I am glad I climb stairs every week (200), going up and down sideways with the grape vine step.  I found yesterday that straight way skiing tired the knees.  Most women have slightly knock-knees and prolonged straight walking, hiking or skiing stressed them.  Whenever you have the opportunity to go up or down stairs side-ways, one foot behind, then in front, do it.  Your knees will not stress on the straight-away as much. I am going to get someone to film me doing this.  There are no pictures on the web that I can find.

Avoiding arthritis pain in the knees, back and hips can be challenging, and fun.  Get out there and enjoy the winter weather if you are lucky enough to have snow.  Don’t let the diagnosis of osteoarthritis or spinal stenosis keep you from moving.  Browse the techniques I have offered in my blog postings and try some of them.  Better still, leave a comment about the techniques you have found work well.

Fondly,

Be Well, Do Well, Keep Moving

Betsy

Injured at 52. Diagnosed and sentenced to a wheelchair at 55.  Hiking, skiing, dancing and walking at 75.  Read my story

206 933 1889  betsy@HiHoHealth.com   www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

 

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Tips for women who have back pain because of osteoporosis

Here they are:

Tip #1 Increase your vitamin D3   (more info about Vitamin D3 for bone density here)

Tip #2 Add weight bearing exercise to your routine

Tip #3 Eat more greens

Gentle Reader,

You have a sharp pain in your back and can’t remember that you lifted that bag of groceries 3 days ago even though you knew it was too heavy for you.  The pain subsides after a few weeks with the help of rest and some pain meds.    And then it happens again.

What’s going on?   You probably had a vertebral compression fracture, caused either by falling or by placing a load on outstretched arms such as raising a window or lifting a small child or a bag of groceries.  The front of the vertebrae collapse.  The spine is weakened by low bone density.  Our bodies can repair these hair line fractures on their own.  The trick is to lessen the chances of reoccurrence.

You go for your check up and they do a bone density test.  The dreaded report comes back. You have osteopenia.  They tell you that is probably why you’ve been having back pain.  This happened to me a few years ago.  My doctor immediately offered me drugs to increase the bone density.  I asked him to give me a couple years to change this picture and reverse the trend to osteoporosis.  The next bone density showed full blown osteoporosis.  I was very disappointed.  I’d been taking a good quality calcium for years.  Why hadn’t it protected me?  I was very physically active, walking all the time, skiing, working in the garden.  I pleaded again for more time and turned down the prescription.  It worked.  Here’s what I did.

#1 Increased Vitamin D3 to 6000 mg a day.  My blood test indicated a major increase was necessary.

#2 Stair climbing.  The advice was climb 200 steps every day while carrying 20 lbs.  I climbed 200 steps several times a week but didn’t carry any extra weight.

#3 Add minerals by eating lots more greens.  I eat 3 – 5 heads of greens (kale, chard, mustard greens, and collards) every week, usually steamed or in soups.  LacinatoKaleSpinach is good, too.  I also increased the supplement Alfalfa.

I was able to reverse the condition.  You can too.

I know you have done amazing things to turn osteoporosis around.  Let us know by leaving a comment.  If you found this helpful, pass it along.  And thanks,

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

 

Arthritis, Health and Fitness, travel

Nicaragua: How it went from the body perspective

Dear Reader,

From yoga to Central America and back.  I am happy to report that I needed very few of my Shaklee herbal Pain Relief tablets.  I packed about 18 in my little emergency pill-box, plus 6 Aleve.  In the airport back here in Seattle after sitting on the airplane for 10 hours and hauling the 2 rolling suit cases along miles of hall ways, I swallowed the last herbal remedy.  There are still 4 Aleve in my box!  I was amazed.

Exercise: practically impossible to get the usual exercise.  Unconventional exercise opportunities came along frequently.  In Managua, we all stayed in various homes clustered around the Cultural Center in the barrio of Batahola.  After a 36 hour trip (we missed our plane leaving Seattle and had to re-book 18 hours later), Alicia (my granddaughter of 13) and I joined our group for tours of two collectives in which Nicaraguans produce products from local materials for sale locally.  From there we headed for our home stays where, after meeting the family and unpacking my suitcase, I showered and washed the clothes I had on so long. This is the first exercise.  One washes standing over a double sink, the washing side of which has an old-fashioned rubbing surface.  You wet the clothes by dipping water from the larger of the two tubs and splashing it over the clothes and then scrubbing.  Of course my delicate ExOfficio sports clothing wouldn’t tolerate that kind of treatment.  I used my laundry soap from home and gently got the sweat and grime out, rinsed over and over with dips from the water tub and finally hung the clothes on the lines strung in the patio over the concrete floor and potted plants all around the edge.  Open to the sky, everything was dry in the morning.

There was no early to bed for us.  Around 8:15 after dinner of rice and beans, fried bananas and steamed beets and a strange new root vegetable that had been boiled and mashed with butter (yummy), the family announced they were going to a concert.  Would we like to come?  Exhausted as we were, we chose to go along.  We walked–three children, grandma and grandpa and daughter–to the main road (about 1/2 mile) and hailed a cab.  Four adults and 3 children sat in the back seat with Don Encarnacion Nicaragua in front with the taxi driver.  What a ride!  The concert was a first gig for a talented young group with a clear, warm tenor; a rich sultry contralto and our family’s friend, Ana, the back up singer, violinist, flute player, castanet shaking beauty.  The rhythm section included every sort of Latin drum and vibs, acoustic and electric guitars.  The music rocked.  The audience knew the words of all the popular songs from the Misa Campesina and their original tunes were haunting and worthy of a CD.  The place was an outdoor bar, tables and people filling the concrete slab just below the stage area which was right in front of the serving bar.  We were a bit late at 8:45 and sat at a table on the dirt slightly sloping floor along side the stage and right in front of the powerful sound system.  No chance of nodding off.  Huge bottles of Tona, the Nica beer, fried cheese and fried bananas and coke for the kids arrived.  By mid-night I pleaded total exhaustion and the mother and children took us home in a cab while the seniors, Mr. and Mrs. Nicaragua stayed to the end.  Amazing.

The next day, real exercise presented itself in a dance lesson at the cultural center led by probably one of the best group class exercise leaders I have had.  We practiced the salsa, merengue, and several other steps I can’t name.  She had us stretching.  Washing out those clothes and showering all over was a necessity after that work out.  And no pain.

Was it the heat?  Was it the vacation?  Was it the clean diet of corn, beans, rice, vegetables and no wheat at all?  Who knows.  I was grateful.

Not to give you an entire travel log, but I want to mention a couple more exercise moments.  We stayed a night in the lovely hill city of Matagalpa, where like Seattle, to get anywhere you have to walk up and down.  At one moment I was able to take off alone and walk up hill.  We would never permit that steep an incline for normal driving.  On my way back down from a high point in front of a lovely house, I passed a woman about my age carrying 2 sacks of groceries, her face contorted in pain, breathing hard and resting often.  I thought how fortunate I am to have all the self-care and practitioners to keep me in such good shape.  I can elect to walk the hills of Matagalpa.  She cannot.

Our group of 10 from Saint Mark’s Cathedral was organized through Matagalpa tours.  We spent two nights in the campo, staying with farm people, members of the fair trade coffee collective, Cecocafen.  Two from our group and I walked over a mile to get to our farm stay, again on gravel/dirt road that rolled with the hills up and down.  At the house, visiting the bathroom was an athletic even.  At night the doors were bolted with heavy iron bars which I had to lift and move, then removing a heavy beam holding the upper half of the door shut.  Then I had to navigate a steep stone stair case down to a dirt slope that descended to the outhouse, being careful to duck under the clothes wire set to smack me right in the eye balls.  A few stone steps up to the heavy wooden door to the two hole latrine.  I scoped out the outhouse trip during the day light and wore my head lamp.  Oh, did I forget to mention that going down the outside stone steps included trying not to disturb a pile of dogs who slept there.

I was glad I had tucked in a therma-rest mattress to help me sleep on the 2 inch thick foam pad on a ply wood sheet on 4×4 legs of a bed.

Several in our group climbed an active volcano outside Leon, the colonial city in the western part of the country.  I chose a city tour with two of the other older participants and we got to climb to the roof of the cathedral, a classic Spanish structure.  The ring of fire around Leon is impressive and most residents have experienced ash in their homes and on their faces.  It makes for very fertile soil and beautiful vegetables and fruits are produced on the mountain farms.  We learned about the complex mixed farming of shade grown, organic coffee, tucked in with bananas, fruit trees as the upper story.  Beans were ready for harvest, pineapple had just been planted, corn was bagged and carried by a yoke of oxen to a high place for winnowing the chaff.  A little mechanical help from a small John Deer tractor would ease the hardship of these farmers’ lives.  They rise at 4 to shower in the dark, make tortillas and get their children ready in their blue trousers or shirts and spotless white shirts to walk the 1 1/2 miles to school by 7:30.  What a pleasure to watch the children gather from the scattered farms to form a river of blue and white, each with their back pack, the 5 year olds holding hands with the older sisters and brothers.

At night, returning from our day exploring the area as a group, we walked home to our farm on a moonless clear night. Seldom have I seen such stars, the Milky Way so brilliant as to light our way with Orion leading to the south.  Everyone was in bed by 8:30.

Our Saint Mark’s group returned to Seattle last Monday and Alicia and I stayed another 6 days, she with her father and his family; I with a welcoming couple and their 40-year-old son living in Batahola, across from the Cultural Center.  Here is a link in English where you can read about this remarkable place.  I signed up for more of Carla’s dance classes and met a great group of women who come twice a week to learn about nutrition, health (mini lectures between the merengue and salsa) and exercise.  They were very welcoming and chatted me up with questions about the US and plenty of sharing about their work, families and home life.  My Spanish was up to it, I am pleased to say.

My host mother is interested in prevention and nutrition and we had wonderful long conversations about herbs and vitamins and foods that help with her aches and pains.  She is 61 and not taking any medications.  She was #5 in a family of 12 and her parents both lived into their 90’s.  Her grandmother lived in the mountainous countryside until her death at the age of 115.  Besides keeping visitors for a small sum (room and 3 meals $20 a day), Dona Cony made helado, a fresh popsicle sort of fruit ice cream.  She made 5 flavors: one, chopped mango, banana, watermelon, cantaloupe, and something else, vanilla and cinnamon poured into 1/2 cup sized plastic bags and tied by hand and frozen. Other flavors are coconut, cocoa, cherries ground fine and mixed with milk, and a slightly fermented concoction of pineapple and some other fruits that she first cooks to get the acid out and then skims, added a bit of rum and other flavors and largish pieces of banana.  I didn’t get to try this one and had to content myself with helping.  They sold for 5 cordobas.  23 cordabas = $1.  She doesn’t advertise.  There is no sign.  People come from all over the neighborhood and beyond to buy one or a dozen at a time.  I explained that such cottage industry would require an enormous amount of red tape here in the States.  They let the buyer beware and the seller maintains a spotless kitchen. One bad batch and she’d be out of business.  News travels fast, especially when it is bad.

I’ll get back to the wonderful topic of preventing and managing arthritis next Monday.

Be well and Do well and most of all, keep moving!

Betsy

BetsyBell’s Health4U

206 933 1889

www.hihohealth.com

Arthritis, Health and Fitness

The Fat Trap

Dear Reader,

I have been thinking a lot about weight and arthritis, about weight loss and how challenging it is to begin and maintain a healthier relationship to food.  In my last post, I talked about the study that found our hypothalamus may be running the show.  If this regulating organ has been damaged by a long term diet of too rich food, is it possible to ever heal it and establish a new normal for ourselves?

Perhaps you saw this article in the New York Times on January 1, written by Tana Parker Pope.  I recommend it to you.  She has struggled with extra weight for years and takes heart and hope from the understanding she has about the hypothalamus and the possibility of actually changing its messaging system.

I am going to leave you with this long article from the NYTimes.  I would love to hear your reaction to it.  Please share.

Are you engaging in any winter sport?  I enjoyed my first day on cross country skis this past Wednesday and managed a pain free day with 2 Aleve at breakfast.  Thursday morning wasn’t bad either, maybe because I took a protein sports recovery drink with me and drank it on the bus coming home and again before bed.  The one I use is called Physique and is made by Shaklee.  It repairs torn muscle with the proteins, vitamins and minerals in it.  Thursday night I could feel a stiffening up and did some of my Pilates floor exercises before hottub and bed and this morning did a big routine of Feldenkrais, Pilates, weight lifting and other stretching and then took a long walk including a stair case with 190 treads.  All this helped keep me from arthritis pain.

What is your routine after a work out?  BTW when you climb stairs try walking up sideways, facing the railing, right shoulder toward to top.  Lift the left leg and place it on the step above crossing the right.  Then, weight on the left foot, step up with the right still  facing the railing.  Next step with the left foot, swing it behind and up.  You are going up the stairs with the left foot traveling in front and then in back and then in front.  Then turn to face the left shoulder to the top and do the weave with the right leg. This strengthens the sides of the knees.  We girls hurt our knees by always walking straight up the stairs because we are just slightly (sometimes more than slightly) knock kneed.  This stair climbing (and descending) greatly strengthens the muscles and tendons along the sides.  Do this slowly, planting your foot solidly and lifting with the thigh engaged instead of heaving the body up with the shoulders.  Make the legs and side knees work for you.  I may have described this in an earlier blog when I was talking about my training program for climbing Mt. Shasta.   If you try this, let me know how it goes.

Good luck and keep moving.

Betsy

206 933 1889

www.TiredNoMore. com