Arthritis is a painful and debilitating affliction that causes the joints to swell, resulting in pain, stiffness, and loss of function, particularly in the hands, knees, feet, hips, and spine.
Suffering from arthritis can be a life-changing condition if left unchecked and ignored.
A typical starting method many folks use to cope with this disease is self-medication with over-the-counter painkillers, such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen. When relief is not resolved by this method, many end up on steroids, immunosuppressant drugs, and even highly addictive prescription painkillers. Sometimes, the eventual medical solution is risky surgery with long-term consequences.
Chiropractic care uses a holistic approach and offers an alternative treatment to taking potentially harmful drugs. Chiropractic helps your body deal with both the causes and effects of arthritis.
Chiropractic is remarkably effective in treating arthritis and its symptoms, and offers multiple benefits in offsetting the dreaded effects of the disease that can take so many undesirable forms for so many people.
Using chiropractic care to manage arthritis pain can reduce the chances of experiencing harmful side effects from the long-term use of both prescription and nonprescription drugs. It offers a non-invasive method of maintaining physical health and addresses arthritis in a way that will offer freedom of movement without the deteriorating effects that might come with medication.
The main focus of chiropractic care is centered in the body’s ability to heal itself and chiropractic care for arthritis addresses the practical issue of getting the body to move more freely. Once the body is aligned to move with fewer restrictions, the need for pain-relieving medications can lessen or disappears altogether.
Chiropractic is a form of physical medicine that focuses on the relationship between the body’s structure, primarily the spine, and how it functions. Chiropractic primarily addresses how a person’s health is affected by disorders of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. A chiropractor performs a structural manipulation by hand (commonly known as a spinal adjustment) and it is the force of the pressure during the adjustment that assists in the realignment of the spine.
Focusing on the nervous system as a key to maintaining health, proper adjustment of the spine (central to the nervous system) helps create an environment inhospitable to disease.
Chiropractic’s use of spinal manipulation can result in the diminishing of pain by assisting overall physical health, resulting in greater ease of movement and decreased fluid build-up in the joints that often accompanies arthritic conditions. The use of massage in chiropractic care can also eases stiffness and encourages movement. The application of heat and cold presses has also been shown to ease arthritic pain. Further, the use of electrical stimulation in chiropractic treatment is believed to stimulate pain-inhibiting chemicals in the human body, also known as endorphins, and block the nerve fibers that are responsible for pain.
When addressing issues that often accompany arthritis and the physical strain it can bring to the human body, chiropractic treatment also may include exercise, acupuncture, dietary supplements, recommending a healthier diet, weight loss, and other lifestyle adjustments.
Chiropractic as a regular treatment will also help prevent arthritis, or at least its damaging effects. This form of prevention is probably the most crucial benefit in treating the disease. The lifestyle changes and therapies associated with chiropractic care will offset health problems that might accompany arthritis. Proper weight and a healthy immune system are both important factors in limiting the devastating effects of all forms of arthritis.
Adding chiropractic into the conversation of arthritis adds a dimension that opens up possibilities for maintaining an active lifestyle. It provides not only a solution to chronic pain, but also the potential for addressing the disease with more flexible methods of management that focus on long-term health.
Sadly, millions of Americans suffer with either self-reported or physician-diagnosed arthritis, and it is the most common cause of disability in the United States. It causes difficulty in pursuing normal activities, even to the extent of interfering with walking, standing, getting dressed, personal grooming, and household chores. Arthritis is a crippling condition that even prevents some people from working.
More than half of adults who have arthritis, also have diabetes and heart disease, so the overall health concern is not only for the pain suffered by individuals. It is a societal problem that must be addressed more effectively to relieve the symptoms, and the financial costs. Chiropractic care is certainly an effective approach to be considered.
With chiropractic care and the benefits it provides, arthritis can become a manageable ailment. Along with exercise and a healthy diet, sufferers will no longer need to fear that their normal activities must end or be deterred.