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Factors Affecting Arthritis Severity
You now know the cause of
arthritis, but there are five primary factors that determine how the severity
of the condition.
The first is simply the degree of
misalignment in the joint. Just like our tire example, the worse the
misalignment the greater the stress on the cartilage and the faster it will
degenerate. If someone has a severe hip misalignment created at age 15, they
could have severe arthritic degeneration by age 25.
The second factor is time. Obviously, the
longer a misalignment is present the more wear and tear there will be on the
cartilage. This is why arthritis gets progressively worse. This also explains
why so many people get arthritis in one area or another. As people live, work
and play they accumulate muscle damage leading to joint misalignments. As time
passes, more damage accumulates. Since many of these imbalances are minor the
person doesn't notice a problem until they are 50 or 60 years old. At that
time, they begin to have stiffness and pain in their knee, hip, fingers or
whatever joints have been misaligned. Most just assume that it's a natural part
of aging and are unaware that a successful treatment exists, so they just live
with the pain or use drugs or other treatments that just cover up their
symptoms. Unfortunately, as the condition progressively worsens, stronger drugs
and more radical treatments are required to deal with the pain.
A third factor influencing the severity
of arthritis is the amount of use the affected joint receives. If someone is
physically active in their job, sports, exercising or other activities their
misaligned joint is going to wear out faster than if they are physically
inactive. If you rarely drive your car with the misaligned wheel, the tire will
last a lot longer.
The fourth factor is weight. It should be
easy to see that weight-bearing joints (those most commonly affected with
arthritis) such as feet, ankles, knees, hips and spine are going to receive
more stress in a 250 pound person than in a 125 pound person. Reducing and
maintaining a more normal body weight will not only reduce the pain of
arthritis but will slow the progression of cartilage degeneration.
The fifth factor comes from the bodies
power of adaptation. When a joint is imbalanced the body actually creates other
joint imbalances to compensate and reduce stress to the original imbalanced
joint. This can often result in pain relief in the original injured area and
explains why a lot of therapies appear to have resolved a problem when they
really haven't. Unfortunately, the compensating area will usually develop a
problem of its own after a period of time because of the excessive stress it
then receives.
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