Perhaps you’ve visited your physician lately because of joint pain, and she tells you that you have arthritis. Maybe she mentioned “degenerative joint disease” – which sounds even worse! Well, these two things are basically the same thing – inflammation of the joint. Many people think that the arthritis diagnosis is inevitable especially as we get older, not realizing that there is something to do to correct it, not just mask the symptoms with pain relievers.
There are several different kinds of arthritis but we are talking about Osteoarthritis (OA). This is the most common form of arthritis. It is often called “wear and tear” arthritis and happens when cartilage in the joint breaks down creating the painful symptoms and joint swelling.
Sometimes OA presents on just one side of the body and not the other. You might wonder why since both sides of the body are the same age! It all has to do with joint position. When we are out of alignment (perhaps due to an injury) then we “load” one side of the body differently than the other, favoring the injured side. When this happens, then that side will “wear” differently and faster which begins the arthritic process. Sometimes people with osteoarthritis experience pain in all of their joints. When joints are not lined up, the surfaces of the joints wear unevenly creating friction. This friction causes inflammation, pain, and stiffness ….arthritis
One of my clients has arthritis in her hands…stiff sore inflamed joints-ouch! But it’s not really about her hands at all. Her shoulders are rounded forward, causing her elbow and wrist to be out of alignment. All the joints are not moving well together and there is friction in every text and email she sends. So, we’ve got to get her shoulders back into proper alignment, which will get her elbows in place and on down to her wrists and fingers.
At Pain Free, we teach people how to get their bodies back to the original design – joints back in an equal bilateral position and the rest of the body aligned in strait lines, at 90 degree angles to the line of gravity. So, don’t despair if you are experiencing arthritis pain – the healing power of your body is amazing! You just need to know what to do and we’re here to help.
The TOWER, as we affectionately call it, is truly an amazing piece of equipment. It may look menacing but it should not be feared! The tower helps to re-establish the functional chain reaction of muscles that we need in order to maintain good posture and be pain free. It’s great because you just lie there and better posture happens just by lowering the leg through different positions! Yes, it takes time to do it. Because most of us don’t think anything is happening unless we’re DO-ing something, one might be skeptical that anything could be changing. Just because you aren’t actively doing something doesn’t mean that the body is inactive. In the tower the body is actually very active while you just lay there! Really. For the musculoskeletal system, it’s like going on a long walk with everything working right — without any of your habitual compensations allowed to come into play.
