Inflammation and Joint Pain

Inflammation and the Disease Process

Anti-Inflammation Herbs

Anti-Inflammation Diet

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Osteoarthritis

Arthritis & Acupuncture

Side Effects of Vioxx (NSAID)

Naturopathic Pain Management

Virus Inflammation Causing Common Diseases?

Glucosamine and MSM combined are more effective against osteoarthritis than either agent alone, according to Indian researchers.

June 2004 - In the journal Clinical Drug Investigations, doctors report that although the individual agents did improve pain and swelling in patients' affected joints, the combined therapy was more effective.

Side Effects for the Drug Vioxx

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges the voluntary withdrawal from the market of Vioxx a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) Side effects of the drug vioxx include risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, liver and kidney toxicity and heart attack.

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Inflammation, Arthritis, and Relief of Joint Pain

By Camilla Parr Opeyemi, MD

Alternative medicine is leading the way in deepening our understanding of the importance of inflammation in the prevention, early detection and healing of many chronic diseases.

A conventionally trained doctor will learn that the process we call inflammation is the body’s immune system response to an injury or assault. We learn that our body has a complicated cascading series of biochemical and cellular reactions that are triggered when we burn a finger, sprain an ankle, or encounter the bacteria that can cause a streptococcal infection. What we didn’t learn-which complementary and alternative healers have known for years - is that this process we conventional doctors call inflammation represents a process with much broader implications to our health and wellness.

Inflammation can also occur in the apparent absence of an assault or trauma. Rheumatoid arthritis is an example. A chronic disease experienced primarily by women, the body literally turns against itself. With Rheumatoid arthritis, the body generates the same response we see with trauma to a joint (mobilizing the immune system inflammatory response with resulting swelling, redness, and pain) in the absence of any trauma. Over time, this repeated inflammatory response damages the joints, producing deformity and chronic impaired mobility.

Modern science is also beginning to document the vital importance of inflammation in the development of heart disease. We create tiny insults to our blood vessels over and over, as we traumatize our bodies with poor dietary habits, don’t metabolize (create usable energy for our bodies) well, build up toxins, and burn delicate tissues with over-oxidation. Our bodies attempt to correct these insults by “sending in the inflammation troops” to protect the injured cell walls. Over time, we develop arteriosclerosis and arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), followed by heart attacks or strokes. A simple test for inflammation, C-reactive protein is extremely useful in evaluating who is at risk for coronary artery disease. This test is only just now coming into routine use by conventional doctors as a screening tool. Where you, reader, will most likely personally experience easily recognizable consequences of an overactive inflammatory response is arthritis. Not the dramatic Rheumatoid arthritis mentioned earlier, but the more common “wear and tear” arthritis we call degenerative arthritis. We have been taught that this is a process that occurs as we age. We are taught that once we have an arthritic joint we are best helped with anti-inflammatory medications (over the counter Advil, aspirin, or Aleve; prescription Vioxx or Celebrex). Once those medications fail, we move on to joint replacements (if the joints can be replaced), to surgical fusion to decrease pain at the lower back (where joints can’t be replaced), and are left by conventional medicine to suffer if the diseased joint doesn’t fall into either fore mentioned category (for example chronic arthritis of the neck).

Glycosamine and kinder, gentler interventions?

Glycosamine is a natural dietary supplement, available without a prescription, with a good track record for pain relief of arthritis, and actual reduction of joint damage. A randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study (this is the kind of study that conventional doctors respect as valid) was done, looking at 212 patients with arthritis of the knee. Use of 1,500 mg of glycosamine daily, over a three year period provided not only pain relief, but no increased loss of cartilage was found. The placebo group showed progression of the narrowing in the knee joint, due to ongoing loss of cartilage, over the same three year time period (1). In theory, glycosamine supplements the body’s own supply of building block material for maintaining the flexibility and integrity of the cartilage that cushions the joints, allowing the body to replenish that cartilage, even as the inflammatory response damages it.

Glycosamine 500 mg three times a day appears to produce the best results. This supplement does not necessarily produce “quick fix” results; a three month trial is recommended, before giving up and deciding that nothing is happening. It is an inability to commit to actually taking the supplement three times a day that seems to account for most treatment failures. Rarely, people cannot tolerate this supplement (diarrhea being the most common side effect).

Better yet would be prevention. We get degenerative arthritis in our weight bearing joints, first. If we are overweight, that is going to stress our knees, hips, and lower backs even more. Therefore, weight loss (if we are overweight), and maintaining a normal weight (if we are not overweight) is a primary (before we ever get arthritis) and a secondary (will still relieve pain once we have developed the arthritis) prevention tool.

Exercise keeps our joints moving, which can be very good for primary prevention of arthritis, but can aggravate existing arthritis. Use of over the counter or prescription anti-inflammatory drugs can make us feel less pain if we take them before going jogging. But, if the pain in our knees is masked by the drug, we might jog longer, adding to the wear and tear damage that is happening in our knees, back or hips, triggering more of an inflammatory response.

So what will you choose, an easy fix, or a healthier life? was an easy fix. It definitely worked to decrease arthritis pain, rightfully making it the best seller it was. What it also did was block one cascade path in the inflammatory response, “pushing” another path into high gear. That other path happens to be the one that contributes to arteriosclerosis. With our better understanding of the complex role of inflammation in the body, we can see the connection of Vioxx to increased heart attacks. Unfortunately, most conventional doctors did not. And the pharmaceutical company that made Vioxx had lots to gain by keeping us all in the dark.

A cautionary tale for all; conventional medicine is not always right, “scientifically valid”, or honest, despite the number of journal references sited.

And alternative therapies may heal in ways that conventional doctors can never explain with our valid scientific studies. For centuries, Traditional Chinese Medicine has referred to “too much heat in the body”, as will Ayurvedic medicine, and many “folk” medical practices?All of these phrases reflect a particular understanding- but not from the scientific way of knowing-of the inflammation process. These traditions also recognize energetic and emotional traumas in the body as having an effect on heat/ inflammatory response. In the world of alternative healing, rheumatoid arthritis would not be perceived as “inflammation in the absence of trauma” at all. Trauma is there; the conventional doctor wouldn’t think to address “blocked chi at the liver meridian”, chronic emotional stress, or “a broken heart, stuck in anger”. An acupuncturist or cuarandera might obtain a remission or a healing that is in the world of magic and miracle to conventional medicine. As East meets West, and old healing practices inform newer knowledge, understanding our bodies and how they work is our best tool for empowered approach to selecting healing arts that work best for us-as complex individuals in an increasingly complex world of medicine, magic, and miracles.

The Important Truth About
Joint Health

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By Doctor Marcus Laux, ND

• An Engineering Miracle
• An Engineering Breakdown
• Drug-Free Solutions

Chances are you or someone you know has osteoarthritis. Also known as degenerative joint disease, osteoarthritis affects more than 40 million Americans, and many more women than men. While most people do not suffer from the aches and pains of osteoarthritis until after 50, it affects more than 85 percent of the population after age 70.

If you have arthritis and have been to a conventional medical practitioner, you might be reading this with a skeptical eye. You may have been told that arthritis is incurable, a result of age or genetics, and that you simply have to learn to live with its symptoms. You may even have been warned against any alternative therapies that claim to solve your problem. Well, forget what you’ve heard. Millions upon millions of people have lived painful, disabled, even crippled lives because of such misconceptions. You don’t have to be one of them.

There are two primary types of osteoarthritis. The first is caused by the gradual wear and tear on your cartilage that comes about simply from daily life. The second is due to injury or disease and can show up at any time. A car accident, an old football injury—they may heal beautifully at the time, and then reappear to cause joint problems later on in life. In addition, there are many other factors—such as repetitive stress injuries, antibiotics, candidiasis, food allergies, parasites, leaky gut syndrome, hormone deficiency, genetics, and being overweight—that can cause, contribute, or lead to the aches and pains of arthritis.

An Engineering Miracle

Your body is an engineering miracle of bones, joints, muscles, and connective tissue that not only supports up to hundreds of pounds every day, but also performs thousands of acts that require strength and flexibility. The entire structure is set up to move smoothly through a wide range of motions, in large part because of the design of our joints.

At the very ends of adjoining bones, there is a tough, cushioning substance called joint or articular cartilage (it’s the same stuff that’s on the end of a chicken drumstick), a smooth, slick, resilient covering that allows bones to glide painlessly over one another inside a capsule in your joints.

Most of the joints in your body are free-moving or synovial joints. A clear, thick, lubricating fluid is produced by the synovial sac or inner walls of the joint capsule, and it creates a slippery, protective environment in which the joint can operate. Synovial joints are the most prone to arthritis.

An Engineering Breakdown

Your first few decades of easy movement—playing, running, dancing, walking, gardening, and so on—eventually start wearing down cartilage and impeding its ability to move smoothly within the joint capsule. This is when arthritis can set in. While your body can regenerate cartilage, its ability to do so declines with age. After a while, you may be left with almost complete bone-on-bone contact within the joint capsule, and that just plain hurts. Pain, swelling, stiffness, and creaky joints—it all comes with the territory.

As we age, our bodies don’t repair themselves as well as they did in our youth. Free radical damage, inflammation caused by injury, infection, exposure to toxins, viruses, bacteria, high sugar intake, too many "bad" fats and too few "good" fats—they all contribute to or result in inflammation. In short, if you’ve been alive for several decades or more, your body is dealing with the effects of inflammation, and they can etch and destroy your cartilage. (For more on chronic inflammation, see The Important Truth about Heart Disease)

You can’t make your cartilage regenerate as quickly as it did in your youth, but you can take steps to reduce inflammation and that can go a long way toward improving your condition.

Drug-Free Solutions

Rather than risk the well-publicized side effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) and pharmaceutical COX-2 inhibitors, try these safe, natural, effective, and drug-free therapies that can put a spring back in your step in no time at all.

Avoid inflammation triggers

* Steer clear of processed and canned foods; white-flour foods (crackers, white rice, white bread, and white pasta); fried foods; sugar; caffeine; and hydrogenated or processed oils (found in margarine, peanut butter, potato chips, etc.)
* Figure out your food allergens—they can trigger symptoms of arthritis. You can be tested for these allergies or try an elimination diet. Every two weeks, eliminate one of the foods below for fourteen days. Pay attention to how you feel during that time. Slowly reintroduce a modest amount of the food, and track how you feel. A journal can help you put the pieces together. Avoid a different food from this list every two weeks. The most common food allergens include dairy, wheat, peanuts, eggs, red meat, and fried foods. Arthritis sufferers are also prone to a bad reaction to white potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, corn, eggs, and brewers and bakers yeast.

Care for your cartilage and synovial fluid

* Take 1,500 mg glucosamine sulfate per day. This is one of the most important nutrients you can take to support your joints. Produced in your body—glucosamine is part of one of the building blocks of your cartilage, and is also found in your synovial fluid. It is needed to produce lubrication and protection for your joints, reduce synovial joint inflammation, stimulate the growth of new cartilage cells, reduce cartilage breakdown, and help rebuild damaged cartilage.
* Supplement with 1,200 mg low molecular weight chondroitin sulfate per day. If you haven’t had luck with chondroitin sulfate before, it may be that you were using the wrong kind. Chondroitin sulfate supports the strength and resiliency of your cartilage, and encourages its production of cartilage, but it is not easily absorbed. Research has shown that low molecular weight chondroitin sulfate has a much higher absorption rate, which means it can get into your bloodstream and joints where it can really help.

Calm your COX-2s

* Use two types of ginger, Zingziber officinale and Alpinia galanga, to reduce COX-2 enzymes that produce pain- and inflammation-causing chemicals called prostaglandins. You’ve probably seen the massive advertising campaign for pharmaceutical COX-2 inhibitors, but this herbal combination does the same thing without the alarming side effects and inhibits 5-LO enzymes which produce leukotrienes, another group of inflammation chemicals. Pharmaceutical COX-2 inhibitors do not affect 5-LO at all.

Exercise your rights

* Controlled exercise, such as stretching, yoga, T’ai Chi, and Qigong, will greatly increase your range of motion and flexibility, likely without injuring you in the process. Each of these exercises has a wide range of levels that you can master at your own speed. Even 15–20 minutes a day can work wonders. If exercise is painful, gently persevere and you will likely feel better at the end. Don’t forget to stretch afterward! Let your body guide you—if you are very stiff or painful after a particular exercise, try something different or perform it less intensely.

Glucosamine therapy for treating osteoarthritis

Community Health and Epidemiology, Queen's University

"Glucosamine was superior to placebo in the treatment of pain and functional impairment resulting from symptomatic osteoarthritis."

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2005 Apr 18;(2):CD002946

Morning stiffness and the Anti-Inflammation Diet

Your morning stiffness may not yet qualify as arthritis, but it's likely a sign of inflammation simmering throughout your body. Continue

Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis what's the difference?

In osteoarthritis, cartilage breaks down and the bones rub together. The joint then loses shape and alignment. Bone ends thicken, forming spurs (bony growths). Bits of cartilage or bone float in the joint space.

In rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation accompanies thickening of the synovial membrane or joint lining, causing the whole joint to look swollen due to swelling in the joint capsule. The inflamed joint lining enters and damages bone and cartilage, and inflammatory cells release an enzyme that gradually digests bone and cartilage. Space between joints diminishes, and the joint loses shape and alignment. http://www.fda.gov

Arthritis Remedies - Science Based Supplement Information

Chondroitin Sulfate

Glucosamine

SAMe

Vitamin B3

Arthritis Herbal Remedies - Science Based Herb Information

Boswellia in combination with Ashwagandha , Turmeric and Zinc

Cats Claw

Cayenne - topical, for pain only

Ginger Anti-Inflammitory pain relief

Coming soon: Learn how the herbs Ginger and Galanga provide safe and effective arthritis pain relief.

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