From the day we leave the soft, warm, weightlessness of our mothers womb and we arrive on this big blue marble called Earth, the forces of gravity are pulling our bodies down. This pulling over the course of many years leads to a multitude of the different aging maladies, such as sagging skin, flabby muscles, and the wear and tear of our bones. This wear and tear of the bones and joints is what we commonly call osteoarthritis or just arthritis.

Unfortunately, traditional treatments and therapies are very limited in relieving this chronic degenerative disease, which can affect almost every person over the age of 50 to some extent. The most common symtoms are pain upon movement and a lack of mobility in certain joints. When there is too much spinal stress, bone growths form called lips and spurs. This is the body’s defense to strengthen an area. These growths many times can compress nerves, cause pain and affect the health of internal organs. The medical approach is basically comprised of taking various anti-inflammatory medications from aspirin, steroids and nsaids such as Advil and Naprosyn. These can lead to side effects such as bleeding and ulcers, kidney damage and hemmorrhage of the stomach and small intestine, as well as weakening of the bones. In the next few years as the baby boomers really increase their ranks in the 50 plus club by the millions, there will be a tremendous amount of drugs that will be put out on the market. Right now, research and development in this area at most of the drug companies is immense.

There is only one answer to this epidemic. There are no silver bullets as there are none for any of the major chronic diseases that plague our society. But instead there must be a comprehensive natural, non-invasive protocol. The centerpiece would be Chiropractic care. Chiropractic is the largest and most widely used of all the alternative disciplines. The reason for this is that it works and works extremely well. Chiropractic is not specifically a treatment for arthritis, but rather an all encompassing theory that if there are subluxations in the spine there may be a decrease in nerve transmission and ultimately a change of function in the body. The analogy of what a subluxation looks like is a big rock on a garden hose stopping waterflow to the grass. Eventually the grass will die, remove the rock, let the water flow and the grass will flourish. Chiropractors remove vertebral subluxations in the spinal column which weaken the nervous system, stress the immune system, put the body in a weakened state and can set the stage for sickness and diseases of all kinds-including arthritis. Obviously, besides removing subluxations, it is also important to eliminate junk foods, eat more fruits and vegetables, perform some type of aerobic exercise, and hopefully, eliminate emotional stress.