Other Treatment

Nearly 4 out of 10 people use some form of complementary and alternative medicine to treat certain health problems, including osteoarthritis.⁸ Some people use these treatments along with or, in some cases, in place of standard care to help relieve their arthritis symptoms.

Some of these treatments may help you move more easily and deal with the stress and pain of arthritis. But in some cases, not much is known about how safe they are or how well they may work.

Be sure to tell your doctor if you're using a complementary or alternative therapy or if you're thinking about trying one. He or she can discuss the possible benefits and potential side effects of these treatments and whether any of these treatments may interfere with your standard care. For example, some diet supplements and herbal medicines may cause problems if you take them with another medicine.

Other treatment choices

Complementary and alternative medicines

• Dietary supplements to try to relieve pain and stiffness. Examples include:
  • Avocado/soybean (ASU) extract.
  • Boron.
  • Glucosamine and chondroitin.
  • S-adenosylmethionine (SAM-e).
  • Vitamin B3.
• Acupuncture involves putting very tiny needles into your skin at certain places on your body to relieve pain. Research has shown that, for most people, acupuncture doesn't help arthritis symptoms. But some people find that it helps relieve their pain for a short time.^{9, 10}
• Capsaicin is a cream that you put on your skin for pain relief.
• Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy uses magnets to produce an electrical pulse that may help cartilage grow.
• Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or TENS, uses a mild electrical current to reduce pain.
• Mind/body control, such as yoga, tai chi, and qi gong, can help reduce stress and relax your mind and muscles.
• Magnetic bracelets. Some people believe magnetic bracelets help relieve pain. But in most cases, studies show that wearing a magnetic bracelet to reduce pain doesn't work any better than a placebo.

Other treatments to consider

• Diathermy uses heat to increase blood flow for pain relief.
• Taping uses tape that sticks to the knee to help keep the kneecap in place and relieve pain. You can do taping at home. But first have your doctor or physical therapist show you the right way to put it on.
• Braces can help shift weight off the part of your knee that hurts. It's not clear how well these work, but there isn't a lot of risk in trying them.

What to think about

There are many treatments for arthritis, but what works for someone else may not work for you. You may need to try several different treatments to find what works for you.

Experts are testing new medicines and methods that they hope will one day help prevent, reduce, or repair cartilage damage. For example, they're looking at cartilage transplants and the use of stem cells to grow new cartilage. So far, therapies to repair cartilage have only been studied in younger people with small, well-defined holes in their knee cartilage. This isn't a common problem for most older adults who have arthritis of the knee.