Arthritis is a disease that causes the joints to swell, resulting in pain, stiffness, and loss of function, particularly in the hands, knees, feet, hips, and spine.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of the disease and is a degenerative disorder of the joints.  It occurs primarily as people ag and the joints “wear out”; it sometimes occurs due to physical injuries that permanently damaged the joints.  Chiropractic has been proven remarkably effective in treating arthritis and its symptoms, both genetic and non-genetic related forms of arthritis.
Chiropractic for arthritis approaches the practical issue of getting the body to move more freely.  Once the body is aligned to move with fewer restrictions, the need for pain relieving medications lessens, or disappears altogether.
On going chiropractic care will also help prevent arthritis, or at least its damaging effects.  This form of prevention is probably the most crucial benefit in treating the disease.  The basis for Chiropractic care is centered in the body’s ability to heal itself.  By correcting Vertebral Subluxation, a chiropractor helps increase range of motion in the body, which assists in movement.  Chiropractic and its complementary treatments, which include nutrition and lifestyle choices such as exercise, can be used as a preventive measure in developing arthritis or to help relieve the serious mobility issues.  Because Chiropractic focuses on adjustments, joint can be directly in order to reduce pain.  In general, the stiffness and pain that can result from various forms of arthritis can be alleviated with chiropractic care.
Once arthritis occurs, chiropractic’s use of spinal adjustments can result in the diminishing of pain by assisting the overall physical health, resulting in greater ease of movement and decreased fluid buildup in the joints that often accompanies arthritic conditions.
Using chiropractic instead of prescription medicines for pain relief can reduce the chances of experiencing harmful side effects from long term use.  It offers a non invasive method of maintain physical health and addresses such conditions as arthritis in a way that will offer freedom of movement without the deteriorating effects that might come with medications.
The best management of arthritis is of course prevention and involves taking care of one’s joints at an early age:

• One should always make sure that all injuries to joints are properly managed to insure proper healing to avoid future disability.
• People involved in occupations that require standing or walking should wear proper shoes that provide good support and shock absorption.
• Excess body weight can cause increase stress upon the weight bearing joints of the body
• Avoid kneeling on hard surfaces to do housework as this can put strain on the sensitive structures of the knee.
• Eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables as they contain natural vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants which are essential for the health of the joints as well as the rest of the body.
• Nutritional supplement Glucosamine can help with arthritis and can possible help rebuild joint cartilage.
• Exercise such as stretching, yoga, tai chi and other gentle mobilizing activities is also helpful to maintain arthritic joints.
• Chiropractic adjustments are safe and effective for arthritis and can help restore proper mobility and function to the spinal joints.

original article posted by Dr. Mike Frias, of http://www.friaschiropractic.com/ on Oct 28, 2009

ARCH SUPPORTS HELP CORRECT BODY POSTURE

Today I really need to tell people and my patients about the importance of our feet and the arches.  Most everyone has some sort of problems that develop in our feet, and these problems always end up causing other conditions that we have and we do not even know they are developing. 
Most people can take a good look at the bottom of their shoes and they will see uneven wear of the heal of the shoe or even the sole of the shoe.  Some people will even see that they are running the shoe over the side in the heal or the forward portion of the shoe either to the inside or outside of the shoe.  This is showing that there is a definite foot condition.  This will cause the patient or the person to develop early knee conditions or hip and spinal conditions, or they may start to develop muscle cramps in the lower leg.  While this is taking place you are slowly causing the arches of your feet to collapse.  There are three arches in each foot which most people or even some doctors over look.  There is a lateral, medial and a transverse arch right behind the ball of the foot, all three of these arches play a very important part of keeping the rest of our body in good balance and to avoid spinal, pelvic or knee conditions from developing.

I have treated hundreds of patients in the last 39 years for spinal conditions and at times have had a hard time getting the patients spine to get stable due to foot problems and arch problems and once we have scanned their feet and gotten the right arch supports in their shoes their spinal conditions became stable and held in place much better.

In the Mahnke Chiropractic Center we have a scanner that we use to scan the feet to see how the arches are being affected and from this we can generate a four to five page report of how your foot problems are affecting your body and your spine.  At the end of this report we then have a choice of three different arch supports that could be used to help make the corrections.  It will give us the best possible support and then the next best and then the lease best support to use for these corrections to be made..

If you have read this article and have noticed wear and tear on your shoes that are not even or have spinal conditions of knee conditions, I would highly recommend that you talk to our clinic staff and inquire about having your feet scanned.  It does not cost you anything to have the scan done and get the report, then if you would like to go with the supports then you will only have to pay for the cost of the supports.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article, now that you have come to the office and have your feet scanned so the corrections can be made to help your body have a better place to live.