Tag Archives: Arthritis

Kentwood entrepreneur newest venture brings the benefits of Pink Himalayan salt to West Michigan

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By Shallom Kimanzi
WKTV Intern

When you have a sore-throat, you gargle with salt and water. When you need to flavor your food, you use salt. When you want to preserve food, you use salt. And for one local entrepreneur, when she wanted to start a new business, she started with salt.

Jessica Ann Tyson, owner of the southern cuisine restaurant The Candied Yam and JA PR Group, just opened The Pink Lounge: Dry Salt Therapy at the end of June with her daughter being the influencer behind this decision.

 

“I have a teenage daughter and she was telling me what was hot, what was happening and what was hip,” Tyson said. “When she told me about this concept, I started researching it and all the health benefits and I just had to bring this to our community.”

Dry salt therapy or halotherapy has been around for hundreds of years in Eastern Europe. It is purported to offer a variety of health benefits including relief from respiratory ailments such as asthma, allergies, bronchitis, colds, cystic fibrosis, ear infections and sinusitis as well as skin conditions like acne, eczema, psoriasis, rashes, and rosacea, according to the Salt Therapy Association. A 2017 issue of the Pediatric Pulmonology found that children with mild asthma who attend one or two halotherapy sessions per week for seven weeks gained greater improves in their bronchial hyperreactivity that a control group did.

 

The salt beds are great for care-seekers, according owner Jessica Ann Tyson. (Supplied/Pink Lounge)

The Pink Loungers offers three different types of therapy rooms. According to Tyson, the detoxifying and relaxation rooms are ideal for people with joint pain such as arthritis while the rooms with beds made of Himalayan salt are great for self-care seekers.

“You lay down in Pink Himalayan salt, and you will fall deep asleep because your body will be at a total peace and relaxation state,” Tyson said.

 

The last type of therapy room is the lounge room that is designed for relaxing with more than $300,000 dollars worth of salt.

 

“If you have seasonal affective disorder, this is the place you wanna come because it is peaceful, relaxing and welcoming and it gets to your mind, body and soul,” Tyson said.

 

The Lounge Room is designed for relaxing. (Supplied/Pink Lounge)

Because salt reduces the amount of water present it prevents the growth of bacteria. In fact, salt also is antiviral and anti-fungal making it a safe business to open amid the COVID pandemic, Tyson said.

“Salt is anti-everything. There’s so much science behind the Pink Himalayan salt and the wellness that it brings for the respiratory system,” she said. “I am certain that this spot will be a popular one.”

The Pink Lounge is located at 3105 Broadmoor Ave. For more information about The Pink Lounge, visit the business’s website pink-lounge.com. 

Get a grip on hand pain

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Hand pain can be a sign of serious conditions. (Courtesy Spectrum Health Beat)

By Len Canter, HealthDay


You use your hands nearly every minute of the day, so any time they hurt it’s important to find out why.


Certain conditions can affect people who do the same hand movements for hours every day. Repetitive strain injury can cause pain in muscles, nerves and tendons.


Carpal tunnel syndrome swelling compresses a key nerve. The lesser known de Quervain’s tenosynovitis typically affects tendons on the inner sides of the wrist.


An autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis often causes joint pain. Without treatment, it can lead to deformities in your hands. The wrist and finger joints are common targets of osteoarthritis, which occurs over time from normal wear-and-tear.


Treatment might start with an over-the-counter or prescription NSAID to temporarily relieve pain, but their long-term use has been linked to side effects such as liver or kidney damage and elevated heart attack risk.


Stronger medications may be needed to stop a degenerative disease like rheumatoid arthritis. Corticosteroid injections are an occasional option to reduce inflammation.


Heat can ease stiffness while a cold pack can relieve soreness.


If you have a chronic condition, an occupational therapist can teach you how to limit stress on joints when using your hands. During a flare, he or she might suggest a splint to stabilize your hand.


Sometimes surgery is needed.


Dupuytren’s contracture, a thickening under the skin on the palm of the hand, can develop into firm lumps that cause fingers to bend inward. Unless lumps are removed early, it may be impossible to straighten fingers later on. If other options don’t help carpal tunnel and de Quervain’s, surgery might be the answer.


Many conditions worsen without appropriate treatment, so don’t delay in seeing your doctor or a hand specialist.


Reprinted with permission from Spectrum Health Beat.


The 10-minute battle

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An hour a week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity may reduce disabilities associated with arthritis. (Courtesy Spectrum Health Beat)

By Robert Preidt, HealthDay


Less than 10 minutes a day of brisk walking can help prevent disability in people with arthritis pain in their knee, hip, ankle or foot, researchers report.


Just one hour a week of brisk physical activity “is less than 10 minutes a day for people to maintain their independence. It’s very doable,” said lead study author Dorothy Dunlop. She’s a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.


“This minimum threshold may motivate inactive older adults to begin their path toward a physically active lifestyle with the wide range of health benefits promoted by physical activity,” Dunlop added in a university news release.


She and her team analyzed four years of data from more than 1,500 older adults in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Ohio, and Pawtucket, R.I., who had pain, aching or stiffness in their lower joints from osteoarthritis but were initially free of disability.


The participants’ levels of physical activity were monitored using a wearable device.


An hour a week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity reduced their risk of disability, the study found.


Specifically, the activity reduced the risk of walking too slowly to safely cross a street by 85 percent. It reduced their risk of not being able to do daily living activities—for example, morning routine tasks such as walking across a room, bathing and dressing—by nearly 45 percent.


By the end of the four years, 24 percent of participants who did not get a weekly hour of brisk physical activity were walking too slowly to safely cross the street and 23 percent had difficulty performing their morning routines, according to the study.


About 14 million older Americans have symptomatic knee osteoarthritis, the most common type of osteoarthritis. About 2 in 5 people with osteoarthritis—most of whom have it in their lower joints—develop disability.


Federal guidelines recommend low-impact physical activity for older adults with arthritis and recommend that older adults do at least 2.5 hours a week of moderate-intensity activity.


But that amount of activity can be too much for inactive older adults with lower extremity pain, according to Dunlop.


“We hope this new public health finding will motivate an intermediate physical activity goal,” she said. “One hour a week is a stepping stone for people who are currently inactive. People can start to work toward that.”


The study was published recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.


Reprinted with permission from Spectrum Health Beat.