Rheumatism: The Hands, Hips, Knees And Feet

Hands

The chief offender here is rheumatoid arthritis. The way in which it affects the hands has been the subject of a lot of study, so do take advice. The chief bodily things you can do for yourself are to use medicines for pain and to keep the hands warm. Warmth means the use of mittens in cooler heather as well as spells with your hands in hot water or wax. There are also many gadgets to help you and surgery may have something to offer.

More important in the long run than bodily treatment for your hands is your attitude of mind, Knobbly hand are not useless hands. Rheumatism does not often deform hands.

Hips

These take the weight of the body and yet have a great range of movement. The strains are astonishing; a femur (thigh bone) is liable to break if it cannot take a direct weight of 500 lb (yes! a quarter of a ton!). It is hardly surprisingly that the cartilage covering the ends of the bones sometimes wears out; nor is it surprisingly that surplus weight is the biggest enemy of these joints.

Massage is useless for the hip because the joint if far too deep to be reached and because the muscles involved are not affected by muscular rheumatism (a fascinating question is why they should not be affected): by contrast, massage is very comforting to the knees. Rheumatism responds better in the hips and knees than anywhere else to the intelligent use of medicines to relieve pain and to the sinsible regulation of exercise. Attention to furniture will also give great dividends in comfort to those with rheumatism of the hips. Walking sticks, operations.... in fact, almost all the things you can do for rheumatism may help if if affects your hips or your knees.

Feet

Chiropodists can do a certain amount to remedy the maltreatment of feet by bad shoes, but there are too many bad feet chasing too few chiropodists. A soak i hot water is comforting. A bed cradle stops the bed-clothes pressing on aching feet.

If you have rheumatism in your feet and you have got shoes that fit, you can look forward to freedom from pain, because the ultimate outcome of even the worst types of rheumatism in the feet is rigid, and therefore painless, foot.

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