Today I wanted to talk about arthritis pain and how we can help with some types of arthritis. The most common type of arthritis is osteo. That’s wear and tear and that’s what we can help with. There are other types as well including autoimmune, psoriatic, and rheumatoid. With the majority of people that develop arthritis, we can help because it’s wear and tear on the machinery inside of our body. Any machinery that’s offset, if it’s left to continue running, it breaks down. If your wheels are offset, they break down faster than being in line. Right? As chiropractors, what we’re looking for is where we’re out of alignment, try and regain normal alignment. I tell people, “If we compress naturally during the day, we should be able to decompress at night.”

So what can I do?

Disks are in here for cushion and they are collagen and fluid based. Fluid should be able to come in and out and they stay hydrated. If I am out of alignment, these joints are stuck and I still compress whenever I lay down, I don’t decompress so they get more and more dehydrated and then I have disc degeneration, or arthritis. Another way that I can develop it is if I have a loss of curve. The chart below shows the neck should curve backwards. If I have a chronic posture or a strain or a car accident that strains that curve, the weight of the head is on the front of those discs and that’s just abnormal weight bearing. When you walk on the outside of my shoe over and over, it breaks down the outside of my shoe. When your head is pulled forward, it breaks down those disks faster.

What happens is we go from misalignment to then degeneration or thinning of the disc and bone spurs. We start to develop bone spurs and what’s happening is there are these bones that are trying to actually reach out for each other and eventually connect and fuse themselves to stabilize. If that happens, then the bones above and below are not going to be able to move properly. We end up with more and more issues. It’s kind of like a cascade. So what we want to do is regain normal joint motion, normal alignment of the curves and prevent and slow at least even if it’s there. We can’t get rid of degeneration, but we want to slow the progression of that osteoarthritis. If you are dealing with arthritis pain and need some help CLICK HERE to schedule an appointment now!

Have any questions?

Let us know and we can answer them on future blogs!