Minimizing Pain, Maximizing Function, and Redefining What’s Possible
Osteoarthritis (OA), also known as Degenerative Joint Disease (DJD), is a scary diagnosis. But the fact is, that term is a misnomer. Degeneration isn’t a disease. Degeneration is a process.
And just like any process, it can be influenced, supported, and even reversed. If something can degenerate, it can regenerate if you remove the cause of the degeneration and adopt the right lifestyle choices. Even with degeneration, there is still repair mechanisms in your body, always waiting to spring forth.
Living with OA makes you part of a large community. Over 32 million Americans, and over half a billion people worldwide, are navigating this reality every day. By 2050, it’s estimated that 1 billion people will have OA. But there's a big difference between coping with OA and living vibrantly.
What It Is
The most common form of arthritis worldwide, people experience OA when the protective cartilage that cushions the ends of bones gradually wears. It is commonly assumed that OA and its symptoms are just normal aspects of aging—but they’re not. Many people live into their 80s, 90s, and beyond without experiencing OA. OA is just one more thing you can’t blame on your age. And OA does affect young people. Regardless of age, the result is joint pain, nerve pressure, stiffness, and decreased mobility.
Additionally, OA is the result of accumulated stress, injury, inflammation, deficiencies, toxins, nerve interference, and imbalances in how the body moves and heals. It can affect any joint, not just knees, hips, hands, and spine.
Chiropractic Care
Chiropractic care on a consistent schedule offers people with OA a non-invasive, drug-free approach to managing their health that focuses on restoring function, balancing glandular hormones (e.g., thyroid), good nutrition, reducing nerve pressure, improving alignment, and enhancing overall mobility.
Through specific spinal adjustments, spinal decompression, and targeted therapies, chiropractors help reduce joint stress and support the body’s natural healing processes that lead to regeneration.
Unlike allopathic medicine which masks pain with pharmaceuticals or merely waits for degeneration to worsen, chiropractic care addresses the root causes of imbalance, dysfunction, and deficiencies. Improving posture, joint motion, and nervous system communication, it supports better biomechanics, which can slow the progression of osteoarthritis and dramatically improve quality of life. For people committed to a proactive, longevity-focused lifestyle, chiropractic care is an essential part of living well and minimizing the effects of osteoarthritis.
What’s Causing the Degeneration?
So, if age isn’t the reason for this degeneration, what is? Here are the most likely culprits. Many people can check at least one, and in many cases all, of these boxes.
Old Injuries (especially growth plate injuries)
Repetitive Use Without Balance
Misalignment
Lack of Motion
Toxins, Poor Diet, Nutrient Deficiencies, and Chronic Inflammation
Depletion or Suppression of the Glandular Function (e.g., Thyroid)
Obesity and Sedentary Lifestyle
Untreated, uncorrected spinal subluxations and misalignments
Regeneration Is Possible
Break a bone and it heals, at any age. The formation of new bone is a natural remodeling process called osteogenesis and as long as you are alive and nourished, it is constantly happening.
In our bodies we have both osteoblasts or bone forming cells and osteoclasts which are cells that break down bone tissue. They are both essential for maintaining bone health. Osteoblasts create new bone tissue for bone growth, repair, and regeneration. Osteoclasts remove the old or damaged bone tissue, literally making space for that regeneration to take place.
It’s your daily habits, what you do on a daily basis, sunshine vitamin D, and the food you consume that determine which cells come out on top.
Add it all together and you can see that osteoarthritis doesn’t have to mean an inevitable decline. If you focus on prevention, function, good nutrition, and regenerative care, you can maintain a high quality of life with mobility and independence. Your body is built to heal, if you support it with the right tools in the right way. OA is not fate. It can be reversed.
Next Steps
It’s important to note than any lifestyle change requires time and consistency to have an impact. If you’ve had degeneration for 50 years, it could take 50 years to regenerate depending on biochemical individuality. You’re either on the path to health or not. Be on it.
Even with that in mind, regardless of your age and whether or not osteoarthritis is on your radar or already part of your life, there are things you can and should be doing. Start by finding a 100 Year LifestyleⓇ provider near you and making an appointment for an evaluation and an adjustment. Together you can create a plan to meet your needs and ideally prevent OA in the first place or effectively manage your OA without medications or surgery.
By working together with your chiropractor to create your ideal 100 Year LifestyleⓇ, you’ll live the active, purposeful life you were born to live. Together you’ll redefine what’s possible!