Osteoarthritis is estimated to affect over 8 million people in the United Kingdom. Worse, aside from a handful of expensive and still largely experimental autoimmune therapies, osteoarthritis is an incurable condition which will only ever worsen as time progresses. The good news, however, is that a chiropractor in Peterborough will often be able to help make living with osteoarthritis significantly easier.
What is Osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis is one of the most common forms of arthritis.
Arising from a disruption to our bodies natural repair processes, osteoarthritis predominantly effects joints where cartilage covering bones thins, bones themselves thicken, and tissue in surrounding joint areas becomes stiff and inflamed. Aside, however, from just the pain associated with osteoarthritis, excess bone growth will often also lead to joints becoming misshapen and misaligned, leading to serious mobility and quality of life issues.
How a Chiropractor in Peterborough Can help
Because chiropractic adjustments are designed to correct spine and joint misalignments, osteoarthritis patients can benefit significantly from regular chiropractic sessions. A chiropractor in Peterborough won’t be able to prevent inflammation, cartilage degeneration, or the thickening of bone in joint areas. What a chiropractor can do, however, is realign joints to as natural a degree as possible and in doing so, help maintain ranges of motion and joint suppleness for as long as possible.
Better Nervous System Health Benefits
In regular pharmacological based medicine, doctors attempt to treat osteoarthritis by using drugs to suppress the bodies immune system. Either this or they use powerful anti-inflammatory drugs to tackle the symptoms of swelling around joints. A chiropractor, however, can help reduce inflammation by remediating the misalignment problems which give rise to such swelling in the first place. This, in turn, signals the immune system to stop attempting to repair damage and in doing so, can provide osteoarthritis patients with longer pain-free periods between flare-ups.
Chiropractic Care as a Complementary form of Osteoarthritis Treatment
In Peterborough and elsewhere, many osteoarthritis patients are reluctant to experiment with new treatment approaches due to the potentially debilitating nature of their condition.