Condition
Joint Pain and Arthritis
Wear and tear in the joints is a normal and healthy part of ageing. Depending on how we use our bodies throughout our lives, some areas of our body experience more wear and tear, leading to arthritis. Arthritis typically causes stiffness, swelling and pain in the joints, and can affect any joint in the body.
Interestingly, the level of pain experienced by a person does not always correlate to the actual amount of degeneration that there is in a joint!
Other forms of arthritis, for example rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis are caused by the body’s own immune system causing inflammation, swelling and degeneration of the joints. This type of arthritis may need specific medication to help reduce the damage to the joints alongside osteopathic treatment.
Osteopathic treatment works to reduce the pressure on the arthritic joints. The aim is to spread the distribution of forces more evenly through all of the joints of the body, so that the painful joint has less pressure and therefore is less painful. Alongside some rehabilitative exercises, osteopathic treatment has been shown to provide significant improvements in pain scores, stiffness and joint mobility of arthritic joints.
