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Losing Weight Can Help Your Arthritis Pain

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

Are you suffering from back pain due to arthritis? Do you also have a challenge with your weight?  If you’ve answered yes to both questions, more than likely you’re having back pain not only as the result of arthritis, but also as a consequence of the stress your weight is putting on your spine.  The body was not designed to carry around extraneous weight in the form of body fat.  Your spine, which supports your body, is being put under a tremendous of strain even if you are just carrying an additional 20 or 30 pounds everyday. This type of strain can created irregularities of the vertebral column. These misaligned vertebra can cause arthritic changes in the spine and continue to inflame the degenerative changes that have begun. Moreover, your body may compensate in other ways, for instance your hips moving forward or tilting to support the extra pounds.  This can pinch the sciatic nerve, which is intensely painful.

A current survey by the NPD Group, a leading market research firm based in Rosemont, Ill., shows that about 62% of men and women and 34% of adolescents are overweight or obese. The ubiquitousness of arthritis increases with growing weight. Research implies that cultivating a healthy weight lessens the risk of developing arthritis in the first place and may slow degenerative progression. A weight decrease of just 11 pounds can decrease the occurrence (incidence) of new knee osteoarthritis and would be extremely helpful in reducing back pain as well.

In order for anyone to eliminate their back pain, knee pain, and pain in the joints in other places in the body, a good diet and regular exercise is definitely required.  Even though you have likely been told this for the majority of your life, it genuinely is the only way for you to stop suffering and regain your life. 

First of all, let’s talk about the issue of dieting.  Many diets (and there are hundreds from which to choose) can be temporarily useful.  Obviously, if you were to lose weight for keeps, the diet industry would lose a life-long customer!  Eating a healthy diet (as a lifestyle choice as opposed a temporary fix) and reducing your calories so that you are at a slight calorie “deficit,” is the only method of losing weight in a healthy, permanent way.  Dropping a lot of pounds too quickly is not only temporary, but dangerous. A healthy weight loss rate is about 2 pounds every week in order to have positive results.

Research has confirmed that exercise and physical activity not only reduces pain and augments function, but truly slows the process of disability. Be certain to get at least one-half hour of moderate physical activity no less than 3 days a week. Even at 10-minute intervals such movement is beneficial.

Chiropractic treatment is a highly beneficial way to get mobility back in the joints of your spine and other regions of, and can be a wise first step prior to starting an exercise program. A well-adjusted spine makes exercise and physical activity much easier and actually slows down arthritic degenerative changes. The Annals of Internal Medicine reported the results of a survey of 232 people who had arthritis and were under a rheumatologist’s care.  Of those people, 63% answered the survey by saying they were taking advantage of some type of “complementary care” as named by the study.  Of those responders, 31% were trying chiropractic. Undoubtedly the most consequential statistic was that 73% of those trying chiropractic found it effective.  Explaining why they’d tried the non-medical chiropractic care, the responders offered a number of reasons: 1) to reduce pain, 2) they’d been told that it helps, 3) they felt confident that it is safe, 4) it had assisted someone they knew, and 5) because their prescription medication wasn’t working.

Chiropractors, also called doctors of chiropractic, have been assisting men and women suffering from back pain due to arthritis as well as other arthritic afflictions for over a hundred years. Not only can arthritic pain and degenerative changes in the spine be caused by the misaligned vertebra that your San Diego chiropractor will fix, if left unattended misalignments can reduce resistance and immunity, which can create new health problems.

It is always wise to see a health care professional to get information about diet and exercise. If you looking for expert advice on the kind of lifestyle changes that you will required to aid you in managing your arthritis, your chiropractor will be very happy to talk with you. Furthermore, besides correcting any misalignments in your spine, your chiropractor will analyze any faulty gait patterns or posture irregularities that may be contributing to the pain you are experiencing.

 

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