Tag: orthopedic surgeon

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

How to Keep Your Hand Moving–Without Pain

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Gentle Reader,

A good friend is suffering from arthritis in her hand causing discomfort playing tennis and gripping the handles of her hiking pole. Her pain, like the arthritis pain in many aging hands, is the gradual deterioration of the joints because of continued use and abuse over a long, productive life.

In 1980 when I was cross country skiing with one of my daughters and a couple other mother/daughter teams up in whistler, BC, I hit an early morning patch of shade at the bottom of a long sun-warmed downhill.  The sudden change threw me off balance.  Gripping the pole twisted my thumb right out of its socket.  The big bone at the base that creates our opposing pincher strength thrust up over the back of the hand.  Luckily my companion had an extra ski tip, a sandwich bag with ice and an ace bandage in her pack.  I skied the 3 – 4 miles back to the Whistler plaza area.  But I didn’t take care of the problem right away.  Knowing how foggy minded I am without food, I had a sandwich, chatting in the sun with the others before going to the emergency doctor.  He, of course, scolded me for not getting to him immediately, pulled the dislocated thumb joint into place and made a temporary splint.  My daughter, a newly minted licensed driver, got us home safely to Seattle.

At the University Hospital, the orthopedist crafted a form fitting splint and sent me on my way.  There was little to no physical therapy afterwards.

Today this thumb joint is disfigured, but never hurts.  In the late 80’s it throbbed and ached frequently and I doubted I would be able to continue to play the flute.

Who do you know whose livelihood depends on fully functioning hands?  Musicians, typists, writers, doctors, and carpenters just to name a few.

Read on for a scientific discussion of the hand and arthritis in its joints.  But before you do, I want you to take action based on this blog post.

Go to the comment section and tell us how your hands are doing and what it would mean to you to lose their dexterity and strength.

Go to my Shaklee shopping page and read about the products that turn this advancing arthritis pain around, keeping the joints healthy and mobile.

Share this article with someone you know who is suffering from joint inflammation, joint pain in the hands whether from an injury or wear and tear of age so they can chose an alternative to the treatments described in the medical information to follow.

What is the cause of arthritis pain in the hand? When arthritis is due to trauma, the cartilage is damaged.

A doctor can diagnose arthritis of the hand by examining the hand and by taking X-rays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m giving you a link to a thorough and detailed article published by the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons.  Because of the copyright law, I will not include the whole text in this post.  http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00224

What I will point out is that there is never a mention of nutrition as a possible abatement, intervention or even treatment for a painful, swollen arthritic joint.  What I can tell you from personal experience and the experience of thousands of others is that a nutritionally supported joint will remain functional, will heal itself and will serve you for many years without the surgeries described.  It is wonderful the medical profession has developed these treatments, but why not avoid them as long as we possibly can?

When I am talking nutrition, I am not limiting that to food intake or a couple multi-vitamins a day.  Some of us need to supplement far more as well as eating a diet of green leafy vegetables, brightly colors fruits, lean protein, little or no dairy, processed sugar or wheat.  For my thumb to stay supple and allow me to write for 45 minutes, keeping the pen moving across the page, or weeding for 45 minute without pain, I must have at least 3000 mg. of vitamin C a day.  I add the oils to that:  3 servings of the omega oils, 3 servings of GLA, 3 servings of Lecithin.  If that seems like a lot, maybe your body would get all the help it needs from a highly absorbable and effective Joint Health supplement with glucosamine hydrochloride and Boswellia that penetrates and increases mobility. I noticed additional comfort when I added this to my diet.  Take a look at this video.  If your current supplement program isn’t bringing you the relief you want, may I suggest 90 days with the Shaklee equivalents and Joint Health Complex?  Changing brands could change your life.

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

 

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Knee Pain: an early warning sign of Osteoarthritis

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Gentle Reader,

This is just in from the Johns Hopkins:

Knee Pain: An Early
Warning Sign of Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis, affecting an estimated 27 million people in the United States. By age 40, approximately 90 percent of us have at least some signs of osteoarthritis that can be seen on X-rays of the weight-bearing joints (the hips and knees, for example), but symptoms of pain and stiffness usually don’t start until later in life. 

Now, researchers from Canada report that knee pain may be an early warning sign of osteoarthritis (OA). Their study was published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research(Volume 62, page 1691).

The researchers obtained X-ray and MRI scans of 255 people with knee pain who were 40 to 79 years old. Pre-radiographic osteoarthritis (signs of cartilage damage seen on MRI but not yet evident on X-ray) was identified in 49 percent, and radiographic osteoarthritis (signs of cartilage damage on X-ray) was identified in 38 percent. Only 13 percent had a normal X-ray and MRI.

Factors linked to a higher chance of having radiographic osteoarthritis or pre-radiographic osteoarthritis included abnormal gait (nearly 11 times higher risk), older age (nearly three times higher risk for each 10-year increase), playing sports regularly after age 20 (35 percent higher risk for each 10 years), knee swelling and difficulty fully stretching the knee joint.

The bottom line: If you have knee pain, don’t ignore it. Early identification of osteoarthritis can lead to early treatment and relief. 

Duh!  This is a no brainer, isn’t it?  My question to you and to them, what are we supposed to do about it?  We have the early warning signs. Now what?

In these blog posts, I have explored various modalities of care and presented strategies for alleviating pain and slowing down the onset of severe osteoarthritis.  If you are a new reader, I suggest you explore back posts for suggestions.

The bottom line is two fold:

1.  Get to your ideal weight and stay there.  Even 15 pounds off your current weight (if you are over weight) will make a difference in your joints.

2.  Keep moving.  Find something to do that is pleasurable and that you will look forward to each day and DO IT.  Do NOT, under any and all circumstances, stop moving.

I have a great friend who was in a wheel chair with her osteoarthritis and on multiple medications to manage the pain.  A friend persuaded her to seek the counsel of a chiropractor who specializes in blood work and supplementation (primarily by Shaklee).  He analyzes the blood and makes recommendations about diet and supplements.  The most important advice to Luanne was find something to do that she loved.  She didn’t like walking, hiking, dancing, skiing, roller blading, mountain climbing.  Nothing pleased her.  Nothing made her want it more than the pain she had to endure to try out the activity.

One day she was walking near a dock where people were stepping in to sculls, single and double.  She was invited to take a turn and fell in love with sitting in the slim, fast boat down low in the water.  As she became more proficient, she got off her medications and ate the better diet along with the prescribed supplements.  She became pain free.  Luanne went on to win national championships in single scull racing.  Today she is slim, beautiful and healthy.

Find the movement of your choice.  Maybe it’s turning on the TV or radio to your favorite jazz or Latin music station.  There’s someplace in your house where you can dance to your favorite music.  Maybe you’d enjoy a little trampoline.  It takes up a tiny space and is reputed to help increase bone density.  Whatever it is, Go for it.

The doctor’s name is Dr. Richard Brouse.  I send him my blood for diagnosis and suggestions for diet and supplements.  Having his analysis and prescription for supplements makes my vitamin purchases tax deductible.  (I am not giving tax advice.  I am not qualified to do so.  This is just what I do and have done for 25 years.) It is expensive but worth it.  After all, you are going to pay for your health one way or another.  Why not pay now and avoid the steep costs looming ahead of you, not to mention the loss of work and play time.

Dr. Brouse will suggest food supplements by Shaklee. In another post, I recommend the ones that are most effective at restoring your body to good health and alleviating arthritis pain.  (You can browse the Product Guide here.)

When you take your knee pain to the doctor, they will most likely tell you to expect arthritis in the near future and predict knee replacement therapy down the road.  I had these predictions in 1989.  I have no knee pain and have never had knee replacement.  I take a lot of supplements.  People who watch me swallow a handful of them, think I’m nuts.  All I can say is that I love being able to hike to Mt. Rainier pain free, to be able to dance the salsa, and run fast across the street, to scramble down the bank at Shark’s Reef on Lopez Island, to last physically in the art museum longer than my brain can take all that stimulation.

I wish the same for you.

Now, tell me in the comment section, what your thoughts are about your early warning signs, if you have any.  And by all means let us all know what supplements you have found that help.  Did you sign up to get the notification of the next posting?

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

 

Arthritis, Health and Fitness

Water Aerobics for Osteoarthritis

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Dear Gentle Reader,

Around the time when our youngest child was born, my parents put a swimming pool in their back yard.  We used to joke that it was the only way they could get their children to bring their grandchildren to Muskogee, OK in the summer.  Like bees to honey, it certainly attracted us, and our four daughters spent time alone with my parents learning to swim, dive.  My father loved the chance to teach a new batch of children how to race and win.  The design of the pool made it a tax deduction.  He was an orthopedist and many of his patients needed rehabilitation that could best be done with pool walking.  This pool was 25 ft in length and down one side was an elevated floor the ideal depth for an adult to walk, only the upper torso above water.  That was back in 1967, well before water aerobics for rehab and helping arthritis sufferers exercise became an important treatment option.

Water walking is recognized today as easy on the joints and beneficial for those who suffer from osteoarthritis.  “The water’s buoyancy supports the body’s weight, which reduces stress on the joints and minimizes pain,” says Jones [Vennie Jones, aquatic coordinator for the Baylor Tom Landry Fitness Center in Dallas]. “And it’s still a great workout. Water provides 12 times the resistance of air, so as you walk, you’re really strengthening and building muscle.” You do not bear weight while swimming and walking, therefore you need to find some exercise that is weight bearing so you don’t lose bone density.

Our YMCA here in West Seattle has at least 2 levels of water aerobics:  one mid day for the older, arthritic set and several other opportunities for moderate and vigorous exercise in the water.  My husband Chuck found the noon day class gave him a destination for his 1 ½ mile walk three times a week.  He loved being one of the only men in a large class of women.  They flirted with them and he returned the favor.  The pool conversation sometimes rose to such a pitch one could no longer hear the instructor give the calls for the next move.  On a few really bad weather days, I joined him, especially when it was too hard for him to walk.  So congenial and supportive is this group of about 30 and their patient instructor, that when I took this class two years after Chuck died, they recognized me and asked about his well-being.  Now, that is a beneficial reason to join a water aerobics class right there!

Personally, as long as I can get outside to exercise, I will do that over any indoor sport.  However, water aerobics for anyone who has joint pain is one of the best ways to get exercise. Get over the inconvenience of changing clothes, getting wet and chilly.  Think about the whirl pool hot tub you can soak in (or perhaps your facility has a sauna) and go for it.

If you do not have a Y or club with an aerobics class for people with arthritis, here is a link to a web site that gives detailed descriptions of water walking.  Here is an excellent You tube video of other water aerobics moves specifically for arthritics. My personal favorite is playing the piano:  the surface of the water is the key board and you lift and lower your fingers while moving your hands from left to right and back pretending to play.  The door knob twist is another good one for arthritic hands.

Check with your doctor if you are experiencing a lot of pain.  Then take your aching body to the pool.  You’ll be amazed at how much better you will feel after moving in that weightless environment for 45 minutes.  It will lift your spirits.  Our Y has a lift so that even if you are wheel chair bound, you can be helped into the pool.

My readers would enjoy hearing your water aerobics stories.  So please share.

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving.

Betsy Bell

206 933 1889

www.tirednomore dot com

Arthritis, Health and Fitness

I need a doctor! What kind?

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Gentle Reader,

If you suffered trauma to your back, perhaps you would turn to a traditional medical practitioner. An orthopedist, a neurologist, at least your primary care physician. Surely, a medical problem like an excruciating pain in the lower back and the inability to walk unaided would send one to a regular doctor. I chose a chiropractor. Let me explain.

I grew up in a medical household. My father was an orthopedic surgeon and my mother, a nurse. After the Second World War, my father relocated us New York City people to Oklahoma. He wanted to start fresh and chose to do a year of specialty study with his fellow Naval officer, a professor at the University of Oklahoma Medical School. I was 10 years old when we moved to Muskogee, OK. It was 1947, only 40 years since statehood. The leading bone doctor in town had established himself during Indian Territory days.

I spent my summer evenings with my father, sitting on the hood of our station wagon watching rodeo riders crashing off bulls into the dust; stock car race drivers roaring into the barricades and each other; football players carried off on stretchers. He was waiting for the next injury, getting his Bone and Joint practice going. Youthful bodies he could put back together. A bone carpenter at work.

Back trouble was another thing. “People with back aches are no good malingering bums,” he would say. I now had back pain, unbelievably debilitating. As a high school student, I scrubbed in with him as he performed lumbar laminectomy surgery. I heard the stories of lengthy rehabilitation, set backs, never working again. Was my youthful athleticism going to end at age 42?

Our family lives in Seattle. I worked for a multi-national telecommunication company in outside sales. The office talk about stress often included reference to a chiropractor and the help she gives to tense neck and back pain. Three years earlier, on the eve of my daughter’s wedding, she woke up with a neck so tense she could not move it from side to side. On the advice of my co-workers, I decided to take her to a chiropractor. I embarrassed my daughter by grilling the doctor about the treatment she was about to perform. I could hear my father’s voice “charlatan, fraud” ringing in my ears. I was terrified. In 1986 neither Wikipedia, nor Google search engine was available. I wanted to learn more about the practice of chiropractic medicine. Briefly, chiropractic emphasizes diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine. The hands-on manipulation of my daughter’s neck was successful.

The day after my angry early morning exercise session with Jack LaLanne and horrendous thrust of disc into the spinal nerve, Don drove me to my chiropractor. I knew her through my business-networking group. She had never treated me, but many in the group said wonderful things about her. The massage therapist who helped calm my muscles and spasms enough so I could get out of bed and into a car, referred clients to her. That visit and several more got me on my feet again.

Next steps: my chiropractor sent me to a physical therapist and to the leading sports medicine neurologist for the University of Washington Huskies. The physical therapist wired my thigh muscles, put me on a stationery bike and measured the power output. The left side functioned at about 75% capacity compared to the right. I had no reflex when they tapped below the left kneecap. The nerve down the shin was dead. No movement was comfortable, fluid, exhilarating. Were my running days over? Would I head for the mountains with a pack on my back again? What about the trip my daughters and I dreamed of, circumnavigating Mt. Rainier, the 95-mile Wonderland Trail?

Looking at my MRI results, my neurologist said my bones were not strong enough or dense enough for a laminectomy to be helpful. I had to build a strong structure of muscles to support the weaker skeletal frame. He suggested Feldenkrais.

What is Feldenkrais? Stay tuned for the process that taught me how to lie, sit, stand, walk and transition in and out of each of these positions and actions.

Tell me about your encounters with chiropractors? How did you come to embrace alternative medical practices? If you have not tried alternative healing methods, why not? Until next week,

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving!

Betsy

BetsyBell’s Health4U
206 933 1889
www.HiHohealth.com
www.TiredNoMore.com