The numbers of reported health issues are on the rise. A major contributing factor to this is our lifestyle. We might have progressed in leaps and bounds when it comes to technology, but have regressed when it comes to healthy living.
Sedentary work, lack of exercise, poor eating habits have deteriorated our quality of life, and increased the number of chronic health problems.
One of them is chronic knee pain. It’s common in people between 45 and 65 years of age. However, as millennial spend most of their time sitting these days, there is an increase in the younger people suffering from the joint problems..
The first stage of chronic knee pain is feeling pain while walking or climbing stairs. One can feel a nagging pain in one or both the joints. It could be due to reduction in synovial fluid. This synovial fluid prevents bones from rubbing against each other and creating friction. In its absence, friction causes discomfort.
Most people pop painkillers at the onset of pain, which offer respite for a few hours. But the pain aggravates as soon as its effect wears off, the pain increases at night. Gradually, people’s condition worsens so much that they find it difficult to even sit or stand, let alone walk or climb stairs.
For such people knee replacement surgery is the only option. According to US surgeon Dr. Bernard Stulberg, over 80,000 knee replacement surgeries were performed in India in 2012, a 60 percent rise in the last four years. In fact as knee replacement is becoming affordable, more people are opting for it.
Knee replacement surgery has some limitations. Firstly, it has many associated risk that any surgery has; Secondly, every artificial item has a life. Alloys like cobalt-chromium and titanium, used in knee replacement surgeries generally lasts about 10 to 15 years. So, patient may require a repeat surgery.
However, ancient Ayurveda has a natural, risk-free and painless alternative to knee replacement surgery. Ayurveda treats painful knee joints through a treatment called joint oiling treatment. There are natural medicines, which creates viscous oil between the bones in a joint. In the knee joint, it is a replacement for the synovial fluid. As the level of the oil increases, the pain in the patient’s knee subsides.
(The writer is an ayurvedic practitioner. Views expressed are personal)