Did You Know: Osteoarthritis is NOT caused by Aging?

Achy, arthritic joints are often characterized as the bygone conclusion of getting older. Your doctor may have said it’s the natural result of “wear and tear,” and suggested that you’ll likely need a joint replacement in the future. But is that actually true?

If aging was the primary cause of osteoarthritis, why do some people have arthritis in one knee and not the other?  Don’t we age with both knees at a time?

Why does joint pain change with the weather, or get better when cutting sugar from your diet?  And most importantly, why does arthritis seem to plague the areas of our body that we injured when we were younger?

One patient in our practice swears that her knees feel better in her 50s than they did in her 30s and 40s, when she was told she was destined to have a double knee replacement. Are her joints aging backwards or do they feel better because she changed her lifestyle or habits?

Dr Perry Nickelston, a chiropractor who created the “Big Six” Lymph Detox system has proven in his practice that osteoarthritis is NOT caused by aging.  According to Nikelston, inflammation in the joints is caused by stagnant lymph flow--inhibiting the distribution of nutrients and waste removal.  The distinction Nikelston is making is that the nutrients are not getting to the joint, even if you’re taking “joint” supplements and eating well.

Dr Jill, Dr Scott, Dr Kimberly and our weight loss coach, Eryn DeFoort, are all trained to assess your lymph flow and teach you protocols to help improve it. 

What inhibits lymph flow?

Every joint in your body is surrounded by a cluster of lymph nodes and vessels that functions like the plumbing and waste management system of your home. All the fluid and blood that feeds your joints is regulated by the lymph system, which reads the fluid like encoded data. Based on this reading, the lymph system communicates to your body what to do next: ”send more proteins to make collagen”, “take out the trash, this knee just played tennis and broke down proteins”, “remove the toxins, the owner of this knee had too many margaritas last night!”.

If the fascia that your lymph system moves through is pliable and moving freely then the lymph will flow easily as well.  But most of us haven’t had smooth pliable fascia since we were young. Fascia can get bound up with adhesions, constriction and inflammation from a of myriad reasons: sitting or standing for too long, leaning to one side with improper posture, scar tissue from injury, tension from stress, misalignment from wearing high heels or constrictive footwear, toxins in our diet, the list goes on…

If you injured a joint when you were younger and favored one side of your body while you healed, then your fascia compensated by building a scaffolding of connective tissue around the injury to keep it stable. If you were immobilized for too long, iced it for too long, or healed without proper physical therapy or massage, you most likely still have the twisted, dense scaffolding of fascia around that limb, squeezing the life out of your lymph system. 

The same goes for scar tissue from injury or surgeries (like C-sections and joint replacements)—if you didn’t regularly massage scars and surrounding tissue, the lymph system that is bound up in that dense scar is strangled and sluggish.  

Nutrients are struggling to get to the surrounding joints. Waste Management is happening at a snail’s pace. Over time, your joints could look like the knee in the photo above!

So what do we do about it? 

Book an appointment with the Dr Jill or Dr Kimberly or Eryn to do a lymph assessment and they will tell you where to start.  Moving the lymph near your site of pain can actually cause the problem to get worse if your “plumbing” upstream from the pain is stagnant.  Dr Jill or Kimberly can assess which lymph nodes are blocked and get you started on a protocol to bring nutrients back to your joints. 

There are simple, easy self-massage techniques you can do to restore flow to your joints—but they’re not effective if you open up your plumbing system in the wrong order. Trust the doctors to give you a customized protocol that is safe for your body.

What’s next?

In the meantime, just move!   Lymph is moved through the hydraulic pressure of your breath and exercise--especially anything that pumps your calves.  Set an alarm to get up from your computer every hour. Your joints can be improved, no matter what your age.

To book a lymph assessment during your next chiropractic adjustment, call the front desk at 425-888-4170 and tell us you’d like a 20-minute appointment.  There will be no extra charge—we’re happy if you’re healthy!