Swollen tender joints can occur due to multiple reasons. Swollen joints mean puffed joints resulting from increased fluid accumulation in the tissues surrounding the joints. Tender joints mean that when one feels pain on touching the joints. So swollen tender joints refer to puffed joints that are painful to touch. It can affect any of the joints, and at any one time, one or multiple joints may be affected. The pain may also shift from one joint to another in a short period. Depending on the cause, the affected joints may be red, stiff and feel warm to the touch and may have less range of movement.
There is a huge scope in homeopathy to successfully manage swollen tender joints. Homeopathic medicines treat the root cause behind swelling and tenderness in the joints. This not only brings long-term relief to the sufferer but also helps maintain joint functions and improves overall quality of life. Homeopathic medicines are recommended for both recent (acute) as well as long-term (chronic) cases of swollen, tender joints. Along with swelling and tenderness, these medicines also help to manage stiffness, heat and redness of the joints.
Numerous homeopathic medicines help manage cases of swollen, tender joints, but these are not specific. Every case cannot be treated with the same medicine. The most suitable medicine has to be administered after a detailed case evaluation. The symptoms that are characteristic in each case, like the worsening and relieving factors, are kept in mind to prescribe medicine in each case. These unique individual symptoms help in the choice of the best medicine for treating swollen and tender joints. Therefore, it is advised that a person should get his/her case evaluated by a homeopathic physician for correct prescription.
Homeopathy offers long-term solutions arising from the complaint of swollen, tender joints rather than suppressing it. It treats these cases by addressing the root cause. By focusing on the underlying cause, it not only resolves the complaint but also offers long-term solution. Homeopathy helps wonderfully in various types of cases of joint inflammation, bursitis, injury, sprains. In such cases, the use of natural homeopathic medicines shows amazing results. However, it has limitations in treating cases of septic arthritis. In such cases, the conventional mode of treatment should be followed.
Homeopathic medicines that help manage swollen, tender joints are free from any side effects as these are prepared from natural substances. These are 100 per cent safe for use among persons of all age groups.
Top 7 Homeopathic Medicines For Swollen, Tender Joints
The top medicines for managing swollen, tender joints are Arnica, Rhus Tox, Causticum, Pulsatilla, Bryonia, Apis Mellifica and Ruta.
1. Arnica – Top-Listed Medicine
To manage swollen tender joints, Arnica is one of the best administered medicines in homeopathy. This medicine is very suited to manage joint complaints due to an injury, sprain or arthritis (inflammation of the joints). Those persons who need it have swelling in the joints with intense tenderness. Such persons fear the slightest touch on the affected joint due to pain. Acute pain is felt and it feels as if the joints have been beaten with a blunt object. A characteristic feature that may be present for the use of this medicine is pain that starts from the joints in the lower part of the body, and then affects joints in the upper body part. Pain gets worse from movement of the affected joint besides touch.
When to use Arnica?
Arnica is the best choice of medicine to manage swollen tender joints with pain in joints as if one has been beaten and there is intense pain on touching them.
How to use Arnica?
From low to high, it works well in all potencies. Initially, it is best to use in 30C potency two to three times a day.
2. Rhus Tox – Along With Stiffness
This medicine is highly recommended when along with swelling and tenderness, one reports joint stiffness. Stitching type of pain is felt on touching the affected joints. The joints are red and warm to the touch. A key feature of its use is the worsening of pain when at rest, and relief from movement. Stiffness gets relieved by warm application over the joints. This medicine is most helpful for swollen tender joints due to arthritis and injury. Rhus Tox is quite effective even when joint pain worsens in damp weather.
When to use Rhus Tox?
Rhus Tox offers immense help in cases of swollen, tender joints accompanied by marked stiffness in joints and pain worsens at rest and gets better when one moves.
How to use Rhus Tox?
Both low and high potencies of this medicine are effective. However, it is advised to begin with 30C potency that can be taken one to two times a day.
3. Causticum – For Swollen, Tender Joints with Pain better by Warm Applications
Causticum is another beneficial medicine for swollen and tender joints. The main feature of its use is relief in pain from warm applications, like applying a heating pad, on the joints. Mostly, a tearing type of pain is felt by those who need it. Causticum is also indicated for the management of joint complaints when deformity has occurred in the joints from long-term inflammation.
When to use Causticum?
This medicine is useful for swelling in the joints, along with tenderness and pain gets better by applying warmth on the affected joints.
How to use Causticum?
Causticum can be used once a day in 30C potency.
4. Pulsatilla – For Swollen, Tender Joints With Shifting Joint Pains
Pulsatilla can be administered when joints are swollen and pain shifts from one joint to another rapidly. The affected joints are marked with swollenness and redness. A drawing type of pain occurs in the joints on touch. Pain gets worse from movement. Pain gets intense at night, and it gets better in the morning. Numbness is also felt in the affected joints.
When to use Pulsatilla?
Use of Pulsatilla is recommended for swollen, tender joints with pain that keeps moving quickly from one joint to another.
How to use Pulsatilla?
It is available in different potencies from low (like 30C) to high (like 200C, 1M). To begin with it can be ingested in 30C potency once a day.
5. Bryonia – When Pain Gets Better By Resting
This medicine works well when joints are painful to touch and they get better from complete rest. Not even the slightest touch is tolerable. Pain worsens from the slightest motion. The affected joints are red, swollen, along with marked heat. The nature of pain in the joints can be a tearing or a stitching type.
When to use Bryonia?
Bryonia should be administered for swelling of joints with tenderness and pain that gets worse upon the least movement and better after complete rest.
How to use Bryonia?
It is best to start it in 30C potency, which can be taken once or twice a day, as per the intensity of pain. It can also be taken in high (200C) potency but only after consulting a homeopath.
6. Apis Mellifica – For swollen, tender, painful knee joint
Apis Mellifica suits well those cases that have swelling and tenderness in the knee joints, and there is an accompanying pain. The pain is mostly a stinging type. The knee looks red, shiny. The knee is painful to pressure and lifting. The swelling may also be present in the feet.
When to use Apis Mellifica?
Apis Mellifica is administered in managing swelling and tenderness in the knee joint, along with redness and a stinging sort of knee pain.
How to use Apis Mellifica?
It is advisable to use Apis Mellifica 30C once or twice a day.
7. Ruta – From Injury Or Sprain
This medicine, like Arnica, is effective in managing swollen, tender joints from injury or a sprain. The affected joints are painful, besides cause restlessness. Affected joints also feel lame. Nodes may develop on the joints involved, along with the above symptoms.
When to use Ruta?
Ruta is a suitable medicine for cases of swollen, tender joints resulting from an injury or sprains.
How to use Ruta?
The recommended dose of this medicine is mainly Ruta 30C, two to three times a day.
Causes
The reasons for swollen and tender joints are listed below:
1. Rheumatoid arthritis:It is an autoimmune joint disorder resulting in joint inflammation beginning especially in the small joints of the hands, causing pain, stiffness, and swelling of joints. Autoimmune disorder means disorders in which the immune cells damage healthy tissues in a mistaken response.
2. Gout:It is a type of joint inflammation (arthritis) resulting from the accumulation of uric acid crystals in the joints. This type of arthritis, in most cases, affects the big toe, though other joints can be affected as well.
3. Osteoarthritis:It is a form of arthritis that occurs from the wear and tear of joints. It happens from the deterioration of the cartilage present at the end of the bones forming the joint. This prevents rubbing of the bones together during any movement. The joints most affected due to this are the knees, hips and hands and joints of the spine.
4. Bursitis:It refers to inflammation of the bursa (i.e., a bag of synovial fluid around a joint) that helps in reducing friction between different structures of the joints during joint movement.
5. An injury or sprain:A joint injury can lead to swollen, tender joints. Sprain can also be one of the causes. Sprain refers to overstretching or tearing of ligaments (bands of fibrous tissue connecting two bones of the joint). Mostly, sprain tends to occur in the ankles.
6. An infection in the joint (septic arthritis):Also known as infectious arthritis, it occurs due to the spread of infection in the joint. It occurs mostly from a bacterial infection, but might also result from a viral or fungal infection.
7. Ankylosing arthritis:This form of arthritis begins with inflammation in the sacroiliac joint (a joint formed where the hip bone connects with the sacrum, which is a triangular bone at the base of the spine).
8. Psoriatic arthritis:It is a type of arthritis that can occur in some people with an autoimmune skin disorder called psoriasis. In psoriasis, red, inflamed patches appear on the skin, covered with silvery-white scales.
9. Reactive arthritis:This kind of arthritis gets triggered following an infection in some other body part, like the urinary tract, bowels or genitals.