I'd really encourage you to get a second opinion, though, because from all I've heard, arthritis is generally much more manageable than it sounds like this orthopedist was saying - and if yours is special in some particular way that keeps the usual things from helping, he should have explained how / why that is.
In addition to glucosamine chondroitin, there's fish oil for omega-3s - as that page says, the clinical studies regarding its assistance with arthritis are limited... but promising, and it's been shown to be good for you in other ways, so hey.
IIRC, there's also some prescription meds derived from hot oils? - if you remember Ellen B. from college, she had pretty bad arthritis of the hands (nasty for someone so heavily into computers / academic paper-writing); she had meds which I believe she took for the worse flare-ups or if she knew she was going to have to do a lot of typing.
I know this is stupid of me, and that there are people out there with problems that are so much worse, and I'm being selfish and ungrateful...
Hey, you've been threatened with having to cut something out of your life that you really enjoy and which does good things for your physical and mental health. Even if the underlying problem isn't life-threatening, that's in many ways a larger practical blow than a condition whose required lifestyle changes merely involve adding something to one's schedule ("do these exercises every day" or "take a month to recover from surgery" or whatnot).
Something else to consider is talking to a yoga instructor who's also a physical therapist or something about your situation; it might well be that you could simply avoid some small percentage of positions as involving too much strain, but continue with the other 80-95% of yoga?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 04:44 pm (UTC)I'd really encourage you to get a second opinion, though, because from all I've heard, arthritis is generally much more manageable than it sounds like this orthopedist was saying - and if yours is special in some particular way that keeps the usual things from helping, he should have explained how / why that is.
In addition to glucosamine chondroitin, there's fish oil for omega-3s - as that page says, the clinical studies regarding its assistance with arthritis are limited... but promising, and it's been shown to be good for you in other ways, so hey.
IIRC, there's also some prescription meds derived from hot oils? - if you remember Ellen B. from college, she had pretty bad arthritis of the hands (nasty for someone so heavily into computers / academic paper-writing); she had meds which I believe she took for the worse flare-ups or if she knew she was going to have to do a lot of typing.
I know this is stupid of me, and that there are people out there with problems that are so much worse, and I'm being selfish and ungrateful...
Hey, you've been threatened with having to cut something out of your life that you really enjoy and which does good things for your physical and mental health. Even if the underlying problem isn't life-threatening, that's in many ways a larger practical blow than a condition whose required lifestyle changes merely involve adding something to one's schedule ("do these exercises every day" or "take a month to recover from surgery" or whatnot).
Something else to consider is talking to a yoga instructor who's also a physical therapist or something about your situation; it might well be that you could simply avoid some small percentage of positions as involving too much strain, but continue with the other 80-95% of yoga?