Hyderabad: With temperatures dipping in the city, patients suffering from asthma, arthritis and those who go for early morning and late evening walks need to take extra care. Joint pains in patie-nts suffering from osteoarthritis increases in the cold months as tissues expand. This causes stiffness in the muscles and joints.
Dr Mithin Aachi, orthopaedic surgeon, says, “The most important thing for arthritis patients is to keep themselves warm. They must wear knee cap socks, keep their feet in lukewarm water and also cover themselves with warm clothes so that those bouts of pain do not occur.
By following these simple instructions, they can keep themselves warm, which will in turn regulate their body temperature. Most patients do not follow these simple rules and use medicines instead, which merely increases the toxicity in the body.”
The large-scale abuse of pain-killers and beta blockers like ibuprofen, aspirin, and sulphate drugs, by cardiac patients, tends to trigger asthma. Anti-inflammatory drugs and excessive use of antibiotics in this season can also trigger asthma in some patients. Presently, 10 per cent of the cases that come to clinics are of drug-induced asthma.
Dr P. Navneet Sagar Reddy, senior pulmonologist, Yashoda Hospitals says, “The problem is that patients are not willing to follow simple rules to tackle the disease. They need to exercise and also do breathing exercises on a regular basis.
The breathing exercise excretes the particles and does not allow congestion to accumulate. Instead, patients want medicines that do not always work.” According to Dr Reddy, even doctors have got used to prescribing medicines as patients do not adhere to advice. Unwilling to follow the basic regime, patients hop from one clinic to another.
