LET'S EXPLORE DEGENERATIVE JOINT DISEASES

By: Dr. Jesse A. Stoff

Most of the diseases that I work with have a common denominator of an inflammatory component to that disease or illness. Certainly when we're looking at the situation of degenerative joint diseases, inflammation is a major hallmark of that disorder. Degenerative joint diseases can occur for many different reasons. A common cause is trauma. Overuse and wear and tear over time can literally wear out the joint, so to speak, and we wind up having damage that leads to chronic inflammation, swelling, and pain. Now the kind of situation that we're looking at here is that we're not talking about somebody who's just a marathon runner or an Olympian who wears out a joint because they burn through their cartilage or an NBA basketball player, if you will, who always have problems with their knees and ankles and such that you hear on TV all the time. But even us normal folks, through a process of time, Father Time catching up with us, and us not taking care of ourselves as well as we should, can lead to degenerative joint diseases.

The hallmark is pain, inflammation, and swelling. So there are things that you can do to address these things and stabilize and slow the progression of this disorder, such as exercise. Okay, now I just said that this often occurs as a result of trauma or wearing things out, so exercise might seem a little contradictory, but what I'm talking about when I say exercise is exercise that allows for the normal lubrication of the joint, without having to fight gravity and having the bones bang against each other. So the kind of exercise that I'm referring to is swimming. Swimming is perhaps the best exercise for somebody with a degenerative joint disease cause it allows for the full range of motion of that joint, and in doing so it allows the fluids that have to lubricate that joint to freely float and flow through it without fighting the effects of gravity, without having the bones bang against each other, if you will. So I highly recommend swimming on a regular basis for somebody who has a degenerative joint disease situation.

There's other sorts of things that people can do. There's simple supplements that are often helpful. Things like MSM, chondroitin sulfate for example is another thing that's very commonly helpful. L-glutamine, another supplement that's often helpful. In more severe cases, we have treatments that could be beneficial. Yes, we have anti-inflammatory medicines: Advil, Aspirin, Aleve, etc., can be helpful temporarily to reduce the inflammation and the pain, but they're not gonna be curative. In more advanced situation, there are prescription anti-inflammatories that could be used, but again, they're only going to relieve symptoms and aren't going to be curative.

From a physician's point of view, one of the things that we can do, a therapy that's available to us now is the use of adult stem cells. We can harvest some of your own stem cells from the bone marrow or from your fat tissue, purify it, and then inject it right into the area of the joint that's such affected by the degeneration, and this will stimulate local repair and regeneration of the cartilage to the extent possible to thus relieve the symptoms of the degenerative joint disease. If the cartilage has been completely worn away and there's nothing left, then the stem cells aren't going to have a lot to work with, but if it's a more moderate situation, the stem cell therapy can be almost miraculous in its ability to repair the damaged joint and restore full functioning.

Now, as the joint is repairing itself and healing itself through a process of taking supplements, exercise through swimming, even the use of stem cells, you want to be careful that you don't overuse it and increase the inflammation locally. Again, swimming is to be recommended and when one goes for a walk it should be a walk at a moderate pace, two, two-and-a-half miles an hour, nothing too fast, nothing that's gonna generate a lot of damage or a lot of high impact to the joints in question. You want to wear well-cushioned footwear that allows the absorption of some of the impact when we're walking on firmer surfaces and this allows things to heal at a reasonable pace.

Other things that can be very helpful for degenerative joint diseases are things like massage, physical therapy, and even acupuncture can often be very, very helpful and relieve a lot of the symptoms of degenerative joint diseases. This is a very common disorder. It can occur almost at any age, depending upon the sort of traumas and injuries the person has suffered, and how well their repair mechanisms are working, but there are things you can do about it to help to relieve the symptoms and improve the quality of your life. Be well. 

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DR. JESSE A. STOFF is an internationally renowned physician with extensive credentials in clinical immunology and holistic medicine. A graduate of New York Medical College, he pursued extensive post-doctoral training including a fellow- ship at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital in London, England. He has authored/co-authored countless articles and 8 books including co-authoring the bestseller "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The Hidden Epidemic" and The Prostate Miracle.

This article is produced and written by the writing team at IMMUNOLOGY TODAY- The Official Newsletter of Integrative Medicine of N.Y. of Westbury NY-- Edited and co-published by Dr. Jesse A. Stoff exclusively for the purposes of this blogpost (Immunology Today) and rejuvenatesoliutions.com The publisher(s) hold all rights (c) to all elements, images and content herein.  All distribution, sharing or re-posting of this article is only with the express permission from Dr. Stoff and Integrative Medicine of NY (formerly Linchitz Medical Wellness). 265 Post Ave. Suite 380 Westbury, NY 11590  |  516.759.4200  |  www.StoffImmunology.com.   Rejuvenate! is a registered trademark of Intermedia Communications Ltd. All written content in this newsletter is produced by the Stoff Institute for Medical Research (SIMR) exclusively for private distribution at the Integrative Medicine of NY ©2016- All Rights Reserved.

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