mntnrain80c:

A warm bath with epsom salt in it may help. When I was having terrible arthritic pain my doctor suggested I get something from the drug store called Topricin cream. It does not react with other drugs but relieves pain and swelling quite well. My daughter has used this for her wrist when she sprained it a while back and it took the pain and swelling down within 30 minutes. My daughter is very allergic to lots of creams etc but she had no problems with a reaction from them I’ll enclose a link for this cream.

golferchick:

Okay my mom has RA and your friend needs fish oil and high potassium. That will make this persons joints feel better. Another thing is to avoid repetitive motion which would cause more pain. I know it is unavoidable sometimes, but all in all keep away from anything like that. If you want to wrapping your friends aching joints in towels that you can steam in the microwave helps tremendously. All you do is dampen a towel then loosely wrap it in parchment paper, then place in the microwave for 45 sec. When you dampen the towel make sure that the water is as warm as you can get it. Just tell your friend to keep a positive attitude even when they are having a terrible and painful day, that helps even more than the tablets because they feel as if it is only a mild setback that they can overcome with ease. The last main vital thing you can do is be converted into that friend, if you aren’t already are, that lets their friend vent and blow off steam. With RA any added stress will cause more pain. Those are the main things that I do for my mom. Even though she has had to have double knee replacements this has helped her with her on going battle.