Medications

Many types of medicines are available to relieve arthritis pain. Most are relatively safe, but no medicine is completely free of side effects. Talk with your healthcare professional to create a pain management plan for your specific pain symptoms. A pain management plan aims to reduce pain. It also aims to ease distress, increase mobility and improve quality of life.

What to do

Pain medicines that you can buy without a prescription can help ease occasional pain triggered by activity your muscles and joints aren't used to, such as gardening after a winter indoors. These medicines include acetaminophen (Tylenol, others), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others) and naproxen sodium (Aleve).

Creams with capsaicin can be applied to the skin over a painful joint to relieve pain. Capsaicin cream is made from capsaicin, the ingredient in chile peppers that gives them their heat. When applied to the skin over a painful joint or muscle, capsaicin temporarily reduces pain by blocking pain signals from the nerves. Capsaicin cream can be used on its own or with other medicines.

Talk to your healthcare professional if medicines you can buy without a prescription don't relieve your pain.

What to avoid

• Overtreatment. If you frequently rely on over-the-counter pain relievers, talk to your healthcare professional to ensure safe and appropriate use. Ask about other ways you can manage pain that doesn't go away. Medicines may not take away all pain. The goal is to learn to manage pain so it isn't the focus of your life.
• Undertreatment. Don't ignore persistent or serious arthritis pain. It could be the result of joint inflammation or damage that may require daily medicine. Talk to your healthcare professional about how to manage pain safely.
• Focusing only on pain. Pain has biological, psychological and emotional factors. Chronic pain can cause feelings such as anger, hopelessness, sadness and anxiety. To effectively treat pain, it helps to address the physical, emotional and psychological aspects. Talk to your healthcare professional about how you can improve your physical and emotional health.