Osteoarthritis

Other treatment, such as experimental medical therapies and complementary and alternative therapies, may be used to relieve pain and improve joint function for people who have osteoarthritis.

Other Treatment Choices

Other treatments for osteoarthritis include:

• Capsaicin. Capsaicin is a cream you apply to the skin for pain relief.
• Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or TENS, which uses electrical impulses to block pain signals to the brain.
• Acupuncture. Research has shown that for most people acupuncture does not help osteoarthritis symptoms. But some people do notice a slight improvement for a short time.^{14, 15}
• Ultrasound, which uses sound waves to produce heat in body tissues for pain relief.
• Diathermy, which uses heat to increase blood flow for pain relief and rapid healing.
• Taping. This involves using an adhesive tape to help position the knee cap for pain relief.¹⁶ You can do taping at home, but an experienced health professional, such as your doctor or physical therapist, should teach you how to do it first.
• Braces to try to shift weight off of the affected area of your knee joint. It is unclear how well these work, but there is little risk in trying them.

Experimental medical therapies

Because osteoarthritis is caused by the breakdown of cartilage, research continues for developing therapies that prevent or reduce cartilage damage. Cartilage repair, an experimental medical therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee, has been studied in small numbers of selected people. Cartilage repair techniques include removing damaged cartilage and stimulating remaining tissue to try to fill in new cartilage, transplantation of cartilage from one joint to another, transplantation of cartilage from another donor, and transplantation of cells that are grown in a lab and then injected into the joint. These therapies are still under study. To date, researchers have only studied cartilage repair therapies in younger people with small, well-defined holes in cartilage, an uncommon situation for the great majority of older people with osteoarthritis of the knee.

Complementary and alternative therapies

Complementary and alternative medicine is the term for a wide variety of health care practices that may be used along with or in place of standard medical treatment. There may or may not be studies that show if these therapies work or how well they work. But, many people with osteoarthritis use complementary therapies to help relieve joint pain and improve joint function.¹⁷

Complementary and alternative therapies for osteoarthritis include dietary supplements.¹⁷ Some dietary supplements include:

• Glucosamine and chondroitin. Many people take the supplements glucosamine and chondroitin, alone or together, for osteoarthritis. Some people believe they help. But some medical research does not show that these supplements slow joint destruction or relieve pain or stiffness.^{18, 19, 20} The supplements are safe for most people, but they cost money and may not help you. Talk to your doctor if you are considering glucosamine or chondroitin.
• Vitamin D, to slow the progression of osteoarthritis.
• Vitamin E, for pain.
• Avocado/soybean (ASU) extract, to decrease pain.
• Vitamin B3, to ease pain and stiffness.
• S-adenosylmethionine (SAM-e), for pain and stiffness.
• Boron, to decrease pain and inflammation.

Complementary and alternative therapies for osteoarthritis include physical therapies such as:

• Acupuncture, which appears to improve function and provide pain relief for a short time in some people who have osteoarthritis.
• Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, to stimulate cartilage growth. Small positive results have been shown, but further research is needed.²¹
• Mind/body control, such as yoga, tai chi, and qi gong.
• Magnetic bracelets. A small study suggests that hip and knee pain from arthritis may decrease when a person wears a magnetic bracelet, although why this may happen is not clear.²² Most evidence shows the effect is no greater than with a placebo.

These therapies may be helpful for some people, although their effectiveness has not been proved. Most of the studies on complementary and alternative therapies for osteoarthritis have been done on glucosamine and acupuncture and involve osteoarthritis of the knee.

What To Think About

Talk to your doctor about other treatments for osteoarthritis. There are many medicines, exercises, braces, assistive devices, and other treatments. And different combinations of treatments work for different people.

Research continues on developing medicines and other ways to change the structure of cartilage. Researchers hope these methods will reduce cartilage destruction and stimulate repair of existing damage. Tetracyclines are some of the medicines that researchers are currently studying. Other agents being studied include protease and collagenase inhibitors, growth factors, and cytokine inhibitors. Researchers are also investigating cartilage transplants and use of stem cells to grow new cartilage.

Note that most research studies for osteoarthritis have been of knee osteoarthritis. So it is hard to know if treatments that work for the knee might also work for other joints such as the hands, hip, or spine joints.