One of the most useful ways to alleviate arthritis pain is with exercise, which can help you lose weight and strengthen the muscles to better support your arthritic joints. Both weight loss and muscle strengthening can help to reduce painful symptoms.

Unfortunately, the thought of exercise for many people with severe arthritis is too difficult. Here are some ways to exercise, even if you have painful arthritis. Not all types of exercise will work for all people, but you should be able to find some fitness activity that will work for you.

Related: Prevent Arthritis Progression | Knee Arthritis | Hip Arthritis Photo © Lisa Kyle Young

All newborns are examined by their doctor to check their hip motion. The reason for this examination is to check for a condition called developmental dysplasia of the hip, or DDH. Patients with hip dysplasia have a loose hip joint that can allow the ball of the ball-and-socket joint to fall out of its socket. If the hip joint is not positioned properly, it cannot develop properly. Untreated DDH can lead to gait abnormalities and early arthritis of the hip joint.

A recent study has underscored the importance of this examination for babies, followed by further testing if abnormalities are noticed. Detecting hip problems in babies can help prevent the early onset of hip arthritis.

Related: Hip Dysplasia in Children | Hip Arthririts | Hip Click on Baby Examination

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Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, has become a commonly utilized diagnostic tool in medicine and orthopedics. Many orthopedic conditions can be diagnosed with MRI. But sometimes your doctor doesn't order an MRI. Do you need an MRI?

Related: What is a MRI? | Understanding a Knee MRI Report

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Many orthopedic probelms eventually require surgical treatment. Sometimes arthritis requires a joint replacement surgery, or spinal stenosis may eventually require spine surgery for appropriate treatment. After having spent months or years doing non-surgical treatments, many patients wonder why surgery wasn't recommended at the outset.

There are several reasons surgery may not be recommended as an initial treatment:

• Simple treatments may be sufficient
  Often simpler treatments may be sufficient to relieve symptoms of your condition. Even when pain is severe, surgery is not always necessary to address these symptoms. Simpler treatments may be a good thing to try first.

• Surgery can lead to complications
  There is a famous saying among surgeons that "there is no problem that surgery can't make worse." This may seem cynical, but the point is that there are very real complications to surgery, and the easiest way to avoid complications is to try to avoid surgery.

Certainly there are reasons to recommend surgery, and sometimes surgery may be recommended as an initial treatment for a condition. However, in many situations, an effort at non-operative treatments will be tried initially.

Do you think your surgery was unnecessarily delayed? Share your thoughts here!

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