Arthritis

"Oh, it's just my arthritis acting up."  Just my arthritis?  "My doctor told me that I have back pain because I have arthritis and I just need to live with it."  Live with the pain?  "It's nothing serious, just some arthritis."  Nothing serious?  "I was told I have arthritis in my muscles."  Now that's an impossibility!

I've heard each of these statements and similar ones many, many times.  They indicate a lack of understanding of what arthritis is.  By definition, arthritis is inflammation in a joint.  There are about 100 kinds of arthritis and each type has a different cause.  Different types of arthritis need to be treated differently and the long term effects are different.

The most common type of arthritis is degenerative arthritis also called osteoarthritis or degenerative joint disease.  When people talk about arthritis, this is usually the type they are referring to.  Although degenerative arthritis is found more frequently as people age, it can be found in younger people as well.  It is not a direct consequence of age, because not everyone develops it.  It may be present in only one joint or in many joints.

I prefer the term degenerative arthritis because it is the most descriptive of what is happening.  At some point in time the joint was injured.  This may have been a single incident trauma, but more commonly it's due to small repetitive injuries.  These repetitive injures may have only caused minor discomfort at the time, but the cumulative effect is significant damage to the joint.  Injured joints become inflamed, hence the term arthritis.  If injuries are not properly rehabilitated degeneration will result.  The pain is usually worse with activity but the most common symptom is stiffness.

Although there is no cure for degenerative arthritis, symptoms can be controlled and further degeneration stopped.  Joints are meant to move, however degenerating joints move abnormally.  Restoring as much normal motion as possible significantly reduces symptoms of stiffness and pain while halting the progressive degeneration.  Chiropractic adjustments are very effective at normalizing joint mobility.  The Activator Methods adjustments use in our office are non-traumatic and gentle.  Exercise to tolerance enhances the effects of the adjustments.  Chiropractic adjustments also assure that there are no vertebral subluxations interfering with nerve supply to the affected joints.

Low level laser therapy is also a very effective tool for helping sufferers of degenerative arthritis.  Near infrared laser light stimulates cells to heal.  Inflammation is reduced, circulation improved, and nerve signals normalized by the painless laser therapy.

A number of nutritional supplement have also been shown to be helpful.  These include: glucosamine sulfate, chondroitin sulfate, MSM, ASU, devils claw, boron, boswellia, bromelain, niacin, SAMe, tumeric, and willow bark,  NSAID drugs have been shown to only moderately improve the symptoms of degenerative arthritis and only when used for short periods of time.  There can be significant side effects from these drugs.

People with degeneration arthritis in weight bearing joints should try to be diligent in not carrying extra weight.  A sedentary lifestyle can also aggravate degenerative arthritis.  Blood sugar needs to be controlled to reduce inflammation and prevent further degeneration.

  

Invincibility

To say I played rough when I was growing up would be an understatement.  Everything was a body contact sport, including board games.  If my friends and I were not throwing each other to the ground, we were slapping each other around.  There was often blood; often crying.  As we got older crying became tabu, but the physical nature of our play only intensified.  We were physically invincible.  As I moved on to high school and college I still gravitated to contact activities.

In my seeming invincibility, little did I realize that each tumble, each hit, each over-exertion was producing small injuries to my body.  In particular my spine was receiving repeated trauma.  Some injuries, like falls out of trees, were more significant than others.  For the most part they were pretty minor, but there were certainly a lot of them.  I don't think a day went by that I didn't do something to overstress or injure my body.

Everyone of these small injuries resulted in a slight weakening of the tissues.  That tissue was then more susceptible to injury by the next trauma.  Over time all these little injuries added up until the area was weakened to the point of becaming symptomatic.  This is the common scenario with spinal problems.  Repeated micro traumas weaken the spine to the point that the spinal joints lose their proper function and the spinal nerves become irritated.  This is how most vertebral subluxations come into being.  They are developing long before symptoms are ever present.  The good news is that as chiropractors, we are specifically trained to detect vertebral subluxations before they become symptomatic.  Even though the problems have been developing for years, with proper assistance, the amazing human body can still heal these injuries.

I don't think I was necessarily harder on my body than most young boys.  Though girls may not be as physically abusive as boys, they can be hard on their bodies in different ways.  We all suffer from accumulated spinal injuries.  I can tell you from personal experience that with regular chiropractic care vertebral subluxations can be corrected and spinal health restored.  My spine is in much better condition than it was 20 years ago.  I rarely have any spinal symptoms any more.  Given all the abuse I gave my back, that says a lot about chiropractic care.  I'm certainly not physically invincible any more (and I never really was).  Those times of rough housing were fun, but there is always a price to pay.  I'm thankful that because of the chiropractic care I've received I can still have vibrant health.