Osteoarthritis Treatment Options
If you are diagnosed with
osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee, your doctor may recommend one or more of the following therapies to reduce your symptoms:
- Lifestyle changes including moderate exercise, weight control and reducing stress on your joints
- Oral pain relievers, such as acetaminophen (Tylenol®), NSAIDs (for example, Aleve® and Motrin®) and COX-2 inhibitors (for example, Celebrex®)
- Topical pain-relieving creams to apply to your skin
- Physical and occupational therapy to strengthen muscles and improve mobility
- Steroid injections to temporarily relieve pain and reduce any swelling
- Viscosupplementation, a knee injection, such as SYNVISC®, that replaces damaged joint fluid with a substance similar to healthy joint fluid in order to reduce pain and often improve function as well
- Surgery, often recommended when knee pain is severe and other treatments have not provided relief
Tylenol is a registered trademark of McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, a Division of McNeil-PPC, Inc.
Aleve is a registered trademark of Bayer Consumer Care, LLC.
Motrin is a registered trademark of McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, a Division of McNeil-PPC, Inc.
Celebrex is a registered trademark of Pfizer, Inc.
