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Information about osteoarthritis medications, dosage, side effects, drug interactions, and safety warnings. Osteoarthritis medications are used to control pain and manage symptoms. Analgesics and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are the most commonly prescribed osteoarthritis medicines. Medicine can help reduce your symptoms of osteoarthritis and allow you to do your daily activities.

The goal of medicine is to:

1.Keep your joints working and moving well. If pain keeps you from moving your joints, it can cause the ligaments, tendons, and muscles that move your joints to shorten and become tight and weak.

2.Get rid of pain with few side effects.

The type of medicine depends on how bad your pain is. For instance:

1.For moderate to severe pain, you may need stronger pain medicine such as opioids.

2.For mild to moderate pain, you can try over-the-counter pain medicine such as acetaminophen (for example, Tylenol) or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen (for example, Advil and Motrin), naproxen (for example, Aleve), and aspirin (for example, Bayer and Bufferin).

Analgesics:Acetaminophen is the first line treatment for OA. For mild to moderate symptoms effectiveness is similar to NSAIDs however for more severe symptoms NSAIDs may be more effective. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) such as ibuprofen while more effective in severe cases are associated with greater side effects such as gastrointestinal bleeding. Another class of NSAIDs, COX-2 selective inhibitors (such as celecoxib) are equally effective to NSAIDs but no safer in terms of side effects. They are however much more expensive. There are several NSAIDs available for topical use including diclofenac. They have less systemic side-effects and at least some therapeutic effect.While opioid analgesic such as morphine and fentanyl improve pain this benefit is outweighed by frequent adverse events and thus they should not routinely be used.

Oral steroids are not recommended in the treatment of OA because of their modest benefit and high rate of adverse effects. Injection of glucocorticoids (such as hydrocortisone) leads to short term pain relief that may last between a few weeks and a few months. Topical capsaicin and joint injections of hyaluronic acid have not been found to lead to significant improvement.

There are many over the counter alternative medicines available purporting to ease pain associated with arthritis, however there is no evidence supporting benefits for most alternative treatments including: vitamin A, C, and E, ginger, turmeric, omega-3 fatty acids, and chondroitin sulfate and these are thus not recommended. Glucosamine may have some benefit while S-Adenosyl methionine has been found to relieve pain similar to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

1.Glucosamine:Controversy surrounds glucosamine; some reviews conclude that glucosamine sulfate is an effective treatment while some trials have found it ineffective. A difference has been found between trials involving glucosamine sulfate and glucosamine hydrochloride, with glucosamine sulfate showing a benefit and glucosamine hydrochloride not. The OARSI recommends that glucosamine be discontinued if no effect is observed after six months.

2.Acupuncture:A Cochrane review found that while acupuncture leads to a statistically significant improvement in pain this improvement is small and of questionable clinical significance. Acupuncture does not seem to produce long-term benefits.