How Chiropractic Care Can Help Arthritis

One of the most common forms of pain, arthritis, haunts millions of Americans every year. Could chiropractic care be one of the best routes to avoid this pain and help alleviate the pain for those already suffering? 
Hey everybody! Dr. Bob Salamon here at Lowcountry Chiropractic. For this blog, we are going to be discussing arthritis. Arthritis affects about 54 million Americans every year. We are going to be focusing on osteoarthritis, which is the most common type.  There are many other types of arthritis like rheumatoid, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic, and infectious arthritis, but not as many people suffer from these types of arthritis compared to the number of people who suffer from osteoarthritis. 
Another common term for osteoarthritis is ‘degenerative joint disease’. This condition will get worse if you don't take care of it. It will slowly break down your joints. Which joints does this exactly affect? Almost any of them. It can affect your spinal bones, your knees, your ankles, your wrists, and your shoulder joints. Any of your body's articulation points can suffer from arthritis. 
What is arthritis?  Medical experts don't have a cause for it, but we will get to that shortly.  At its base, arthritis is an inflammatory condition of the joints that can cause swelling, lack of range of motion, pain, and discomfort.   Medications are one way to treat arthritis, but anti-inflammatory drugs just cover up the pain you're experiencing. Medications aren't addressing the issue or cause of your pain. Therefore you might not feel the pain as much when you use anti-inflammatories, but they can make the problem worse.
There are three steps you can take that can naturally help you treat and deal with the pain of arthritis without medications. They are simple, and ones that are worth taking the time to do. Let's talk about each of them.

• Your Diet
  
  • Nutrition impacts arthritis in a big way. You need to be eating foods with little or no refined sugars. We discussed this in our last blog when I mentioned "going green" and "refining your life". Sugars are inflammatory agents. They cause inflammation in your body. If you can eliminate processed foods like desserts, pasta, bread, and other foods that have refined sugars in them, you're going to start feeling so much better. 
    
  • You need to consider consuming less saturated fats, fried foods, and anything that has hydrogenated oils in them. These foods will affect arthritic conditions too. They are also inflammatory agents. 
    
  • Eating better means adding more fruits, vegetables, and nuts to your diet.
    
  • You need to be drinking plenty of water. Water will help flush out some of the inflammation found in your joints. 
    
• Staying Active
  
  • The next step in helping your arthritis is to exercise. Your joints need to be moving. If you have a doctor that tells you "Oh, your back is bothering you, go lay in bed for a week", that's NOT the answer. That is going to make things worse. Your body and the receptors in your body need movement. They need to stay moving to remain healthy. 
    
• Chiropractic Care
  
  • The third step is to get chiropractic care. Why is chiropractic care helpful for arthritis? I'll give you a little analogy. If you're driving your car and your front end is out of alignment, what's going to happen when you're driving on the highway? If you take your hands off of the wheel, you're going to find that the car is going to pull to either the right or the left. If it pulls to the right, the tires, breaks, and everything on that side are going to wear down a lot more quickly than they are on the left side. The same is true in your body. If your joints are not moving symmetrically, the weak side will wear out more quickly, and your body will lay down extra calcium on the weak side, this creating spurring and inflammation. You need to keep both your car and body in alignment. If you don't, that tire or arthritic spot is going to continue to get worse. 
    
  • The same situation is found in chiropractic.  Maybe you've had a fall, you had some trauma, and something got out of alignment. Your body will be fighting to restore homeostasis and symmetry, but it won't be able to. What it does then is put down that extra calcium to protect that weak area, thus causing more problems.
    
  • What I do as a chiropractor is determine what areas of your body are out of alignment. I adjust or correct those areas and get the body working symmetrically again. Effective chiropractic care can stop arthritic degeneration. In some cases, it can even reverse it. It depends on the severity and age of the arthritic condition.
    

So, that's how nutrition, exercise, and chiropractic can help with arthritis. It is very important to do all of these steps. I tell all of my patients that you have to keep your spine aligned and keep your body symmetrical to keep that arthritis out of your body. If any of you are suffering from arthritis or think you might have it, it's not a death sentence. It can be managed and helped. You can see results with less pain and inflammation. Please, if you're suffering, contact us. We would love to have you come in and do a thorough exam and x-rays. Having an x-ray taken is the most cost effective way to know if you have any arthritis. If you have arthritic conditions, we will be able to help you!
That's it for today. I look forward to seeing you soon!