Alcohol produces joint pain through 5 routes: dehydration, inflammation, a weakened immune system, aggravation of existing joint conditions, and falls.
The risks of drinking alcohol are widely known. Joint pain sits among them and gets less attention, and heavy drinking reaches the joints through all 5 routes at once.
The sections below set out each route and what reduces the risk.
How Does Alcohol Make Self-Care Harder?
Alcohol dehydrates the body, drives poor eating, causes missed medication doses and fragments sleep, and each of those four makes joint pain worse.
Heavy drinking makes looking after your body harder, and poor self-care raises the risk of joint pain directly.
There are 4 ways alcohol undermines self-care:
- Dehydration. Alcohol is a diuretic. Hydration lubricates the joints, and dehydration removes that lubrication.
- Poor eating. Heavy drinking drives junk food consumption, and junk food drives inflammation, which produces joint pain.
- Missed medication. Drinking raises the chance of missing a dose. A missed arthritis medication makes joint pain worse.
- Fragmented sleep. Alcohol produces tiredness at the time and then breaks sleep through the night. The body repairs itself during sleep, so lost sleep prolongs joint pain.
Reducing joint pain means taking care of yourself, which means limiting alcohol and asking for help where that proves difficult.
Does Alcohol Reduce or Increase Inflammation?
Small amounts of alcohol reduce some inflammation markers temporarily, and the risks of drinking outweigh that benefit. Lifestyle change is the route to managing joint pain.
Medical consensus holds that the complications set out above cancel any temporary anti-inflammatory effect.
Regular drinking also erodes judgment, which risks replacing one condition with another. Alcohol use disorder develops out of moderate drinking, and managing joint pain through lifestyle change carries none of that risk.
Why Should You Not Self-Medicate Joint Pain With Alcohol?
Alcohol eases joint pain for minutes and worsens it over time, and self-medicating with alcohol is the route by which alcohol use disorder develops.
People turn to alcohol to manage physical and mental symptoms, and that use is dangerous whatever the level of pain.
Alcohol eases joint pain briefly and worsens it in the longer term. People who start drinking to self-medicate go on to drink excessively, which produces the problems set out above. Joint pain needs clinical treatment, and a person who cannot control their drinking needs a treatment professional.
How Does Alcohol Aggravate an Existing Joint Condition?
Alcohol worsens arthritis, celiac disease, lupus, gout and fibromyalgia. Beer raises uric acid through purines, which triggers gout attacks directly.
Obesity is among the largest risk factors for arthritis, and arthritis comes in 3 main forms: rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and inflammatory arthritis.
The inflammatory effects of alcohol worsen joint pain in all three.
There are 4 further conditions that produce joint pain:
- Celiac disease
- Lupus
- Gout
- Fibromyalgia
A person diagnosed with gout avoids alcohol entirely, including wine, beer and liquor, because alcohol raises the risk of a gout attack. Beer raises uric acid levels through its purine content, and uric acid crystals are what produce gout pain.
Medication interactions matter here. People manage these conditions with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen and naproxen, and with acetaminophen, which is an analgesic rather than an NSAID. Both interact with alcohol and they do so differently: NSAIDs with alcohol raise the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, and acetaminophen with alcohol overwhelms the liver and produces liver damage. Methotrexate carries its own liver risk alongside alcohol. Discuss every one of them with a doctor before drinking.
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How Does Alcohol Weaken the Immune System?
Alcohol weakens the immune system, which raises the risk of joint infections and slows the repair of sprains and strains, so joint pain lasts longer.
The immune system fights viral and bacterial infection. Heavy drinking weakens it, which leaves a person open to infection, and some infections target the joints directly and produce joint pain.
The immune system also repairs the body after injury. A ligament sprain or a muscle strain produces joint pain, and a weakened immune system repairs that injury more slowly, which extends the pain.
How Does Alcohol Raise the Risk of Joint Injury?
Alcohol impairs balance and coordination, which produces falls, and a fall produces the joint injury behind the pain.
A fall is the common origin of joint pain. Heavy drinking impairs balance and coordination, makes staying upright harder, and reduces attention to surroundings.
There are 3 steps that reduce the risk of a fall:
- Controlling how much you drink, which is what removes the underlying risk
- Lighting the home properly, so the route through it stays visible
- Clearing trip hazards, including shoes onto a rack and tassels tucked under rugs
All three precautions reduce the chance of falling and injuring a joint.
Where Can You Get Alcohol Use Disorder Treatment?
Riverside Recovery of Tampa treats alcohol use disorder in Tampa, Florida, through therapy and medication that manage cravings and support abstinence.
Joint pain reduces quality of life, sharply during flare-ups. Excessive drinking produces bone tissue necrosis, which worsens joint pain, and it produces alcohol use disorder alongside it.
Excessive drinking also produces ulcers, liver disease and heart disease, which is why a person in that position needs addiction treatment. A trained professional builds a treatment plan covering therapy and, where appropriate, medication that manages cravings and supports abstinence.
Riverside Recovery of Tampa treats alcohol use disorder, including the joint pain that comes with it. Contact us today to speak to a member of our team.