Can I Prevent Surgery for Arthritis if I Fix My Posture? [Video]

Can Fixing My Posture Help Delay or Prevent Surgery for Arthritis & Degenerative Joint Disease? Video Summary:

In this discussion, we answer the question: "Can fixing my posture prevent or delay the need for surgery in cases of degenerative joint disease?" Degenerative joint disease, often referred to as arthritis, is caused by the wearing away of cartilage between bones, leading to painful conditions like bone-on-bone contact. While surgery may seem like the only option for advanced cases, our experts explain how improving posture and addressing muscle imbalances can create space between the bones, potentially delaying or even preventing the need for surgery.

By correcting the alignment of your joints through posture alignment therapy, you can reduce the repetitive damage that leads to joint degeneration. This approach helps you regain mobility and reduce pain without invasive procedures. The discussion also highlights how issues like hip arthritis and degenerative disc disease can often stem from misalignments in other parts of the body, such as the upper back, and how addressing the root cause can provide significant relief.

For those who do choose surgery, we also provide prehab and post-surgery support to optimize recovery and ensure long-term balance in the body. Watch the video to learn how posture alignment therapy can be a powerful, non-invasive solution for managing degenerative joint disease and improving your quality of life.

Can Fixing My Posture Help Delay or Prevent Surgery for Arthritis & Degenerative Joint Disease? Video Transcript:

Hey guys. So today we've got a question and the question is, can fixing my posture prevent or delay the need for surgery in cases of degenerative joint disease? 

Yeah. I mean, degenerative joint disease. So we see probably the most common things like we tell people where there is degenerative joints, you know, it's degenerative disc disease as they actually term it a disease, even though you know, it's you know, not really a disease. But, you know, degenerative joints, hip arthritis, you know, knee arthritis, shoulder, you know, common areas that we, we help people with and we'd say degenerative joint is the wearing away of the cartilage that cushions the bones, you know, that make up that joint. 

So, you know, people have been told there's bone on bone. That's what we're talking about here with degenerative joints. Yes, you can say that the adage that, you know, we think about here is that the position of the joint affects the condition of the joint. So if the joint is misaligned from its natural resting state, that misalignment along with use of the joint will start to wear away that cartilage over time, which will then start to lead to that, that bone on bone forming. 

So I know you see a lot of that Carrie Ann with the knees especially, right? 

Yeah, I think that people need to know this is a use injury. This is an overuse injury and but it's an overuse in a bad position and that's what wears away the cartilage and that's what makes it bone on bone.

So if you keep using it that same way, even if you're living a healthy lifestyle, a lot of runners have degenerative hips and they've just like kind of beaten themselves up in a bad position. So if you can do some exercises to change the musculature that are pulling those bones, you can literally like pull the bone that is touching the other bone away and just create some space within your body.

And you can, you know, you can put off surgery for years, or maybe you don't even need surgery. Maybe you just feel better. And it's, it's just about stopping the repetitive motion, the repetitive damage that you're doing, stopping that and moving the parts, and then they'll move in a better way. 

Yeah, it's a good point you bring up. It's, you know, decades in the making, really, you know, for a lot of people It's not just something that happens overnight or, you know, when you turn 60 or whatever, right? You know, we have a lot of people say it's, yeah, I'm getting older, you know, especially if there's pain in, let's say the right knee, for example. You have a lot of clients say, because I'm getting older, they're told is because you're getting old while the other needs the same age, right?

So if the other knees not hurting, it's not an age thing, you know, so it's that. It's that misalignment of the joint. The important thing you said is the muscles determine the position of the bones and joints is where two bones meet. So at the root of it, it's a muscular imbalance and correct that imbalance and realign those two bones of the joint.

You're going to create space, you know, for movement and not that, that compression, you know, that over time led to that wearing away of the cartilage. And that's true for any joint, right? The knee, the hip, shoulder, spine, you know, the kind of common SI joint you know, the common ones that we help people with.

Yeah, and there's grades of arthritis, too. So, yeah, you know, if we're talking about surgery, then, yeah, it's probably pretty far along, but it's not, it's not uncommon for people to say, like, oh, yeah, you got some arthritis in that hip, or you got some arthritis in your spine, or you got some arthritis in your neck, or, you know, something like that.

And so it's like that seed gets planted early on. And then it's like people think it's just a one way street. It's just going to get worse and worse and worse versus taking, you know, an approach of intervention and doing something about it. So like to Carrie Ann’s point about, you know, misalignment like those runners that she's talking about, it's like, okay, well, is it like bilateral or is it as like, which hip is being affected or, you know, in what way in the mechanism?

So if you take a simple posture alignment, if you think of like an anterior pelvic tilt or a posterior pelvic tilt over the femur, that position is going to change where the contact point is made. And so in cases of degenerative hip where the femoral head is getting ground down, then it could be a rotation in there.

It could be that, you know, again, the pelvis is tilted or tipped, or it could be an elevation. And so usually you're getting ground down at the same spot over and over and over. So the inflammatory response is normal and is there to help, you know, bring in cells that will help to heal the area. But then it doesn't go away because the trauma continues and the damage continues because we haven't fixed the problem, which is like getting the whole surface area to be used in the whole, you know, through the whole femoral head that has cartilage on it so it's a matter of reusing it. 

The other thing I would say is, it depends on, you know, which surgeon you go to, which, you know, doctor you speak to. But there are a lot of other options out there now. And I would say that, you know, in terms of balancing your body, what's important there is if you're going to look at something like PRP, you're going to look at something like injections or stem cells or something along those lines, then the good doctors will like, well, orthopedists may recommend surgery, or they may say, Hey, don't get surgery.

Go do this first, try this out and then, you know, see how that goes. But in order for those cells to take and then for the regeneration to happen. So regenerative medicine is wonderful today. There's a lot further along than where we were, let's say, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even. But for the surface areas to improve, then we need to make sure again, that that trauma is not happening in the same fashion, the same way.

So again, like change the articulation. Change how things are working to a functional way, or what we would consider functional, which is in the right fashion. So that the bone isn't taking up or the joint isn't taking up unnecessary stress or getting, you know, unnecessary sheering and excessive force that should be distributed, you know, not only through the joint or through the parts of the joint, but then also to other areas of the body.

So, you know, when you get affected in one area to think like, okay, why, why there? It's not like, you know, you age, like, which a lot of people say, like, oh, it's just I'm getting old. So I'm getting arthritis. Well, that's not true necessarily. 

That's right. Yeah. And to your point about the regenerative medicine is great. Like what's out there that you'd think it's going to keep, you know increasing the treatments that are out there and the effectiveness of it, kind of analogy we think about over in Boston is a car. So if a car alignment is misaligned, and let's say that causes the front right tire to go flat or wear down you know, prematurely more than the other ones, and then you just keep getting that right tire replaced or apply like a regenerative medicine or replacement for that matter too. You know, if that car alignment isn't changed, that same tire is just going to keep wearing down. You know, so in terms of the effectiveness of inflating that tire or, you know, affecting that arthritic joint, the alignment is a key piece of it, you know, so then that that takes the catalyst of chronic inflammation is removed.

So then an anti inflammatory treatment can be as effective. So you don't have to keep getting injections or stuff and it's just not taking or it's not changing the condition, you know, because the root cause of it isn't being removed.

And not just the trauma. It's the time of the trauma. Like, I think that was one of Carrie Ann’s points.

Yeah, it's the like driving the car. It's not driving the car once it's driving the car and repeating it or, you know, continuing to run on, you know, a misaligned body and so forth. And that's where it starts to really kick in. 

Right. And change that alignment. It's interesting too. It's like, you talk about like the hip arthritis or degenerative hip with that femoral-acetabular-pelvic relationship with each other. Oftentimes we'll see with that, you know, that it's actually coming from a restriction or a misalignment in the upper back.

Like, so if you're rounded in your upper back called excessive kyphosis or rotated or shoulder rounding, it's really interesting when for many of our hip degenerative clients, if we go hands behind head. And then pull the elbows back to pull the shoulders and upper back into a better alignment that will change the tilt of the pelvis, which will help give relief in the hip.

So I had a client, Mary, a few years ago who had a really degenerative hip, you know, bone on bone there, you know, they said, you need a replacement. She's like, well, I'm not sure if I want to go there yet. What you said earlier Paul, they told her, well, if not now, we'll see you down the line when it's way worse, you know, so kind of see you later kind of thing, you know, and not really good luck.

So, when she came in to see us, you know, it's really bad affecting her gait. She was walking with a cane and we saw with our assessment that there was excessive, you know kyphosis, really significant rounding the upper back. So when I had to walk with her hands behind her head, elbows pulled back to change the alignment of the upper back. You know, the first few steps were a little ginger, but as she kept walking, you know, she started getting a smoother gait pattern and then, you know, the pain started to decrease and then. You know, she was able to walk quicker and she's like, what the heck is going on? 

Yeah. Isn't it cool when you see their eyes just grow and they’re like what the heck just happened?

Like, this is crazy, you know? And it's like, yeah, like the root cause of your hip arthritis is actually coming from your upper back. And, you know, that's not an isolated incident. We see that a lot, you know, with our clientele, how the pain or the symptoms in one area, but there's oftentimes an issue elsewhere in the body that's causing it.

Then my favorite part about that story. So we did all upper back. exercises because her hip was, you know, too inflamed to even address that socket right off the start of our therapy process. We eventually did, but it was all upper back and she walked out of there from like level 10 pain to like level one.

And the best part is that she forgot her cane. So I kept it in the clinic. So then the next week she came to pick it up and she's like, well, I think that is a good sign that I forgot my cane when I walked out of the clinic. I'm like, I think that is a good sign too. Yeah, so that's a fun little story, but yeah, it's really, It really is amazing when you address the root cause of an area, how quickly an area can change and feel better, even if the symptom is, you know, incredibly high.

I was smiling so wide at that story because I know that's one of my favorite parts about this. And going back to even, again, like all of the upper back work, I noticed that's the case with a lot of clients. Not necessarily upper back work, but because their doctor's telling them you have arthritis in your shoulder, you have, you know, disc generation, disc degeneration, it's always like, well, no, I was told this is the problem.

My doctor said this, this is what we need to fix. So kind of being able to just explain everything and then having them actually see the results right away, essentially, or like feeling the difference immediately is like, I just think it's incredible. 

Yeah, no matter the age, right, fitness level, right, you know, your body can change as long as you give it the chance to. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's really, it's really cool to get people that hope, you know, that, okay, I can change and there's another avenue besides surgery or objections, medication, things like that.

We also see a lot of people, I think it's important to bring up, but if people want to have a joint replacement. So, we have quite a few clients that do end up wanting to get like a knee replaced or hip replaced. They've seen, you know, the MRI, like, you know what, just. Yeah, peace of mind. I just need to get this done or like it's too far gone for my leg and I just need to get this taken care of for myself, which is fine. 

We do a lot of prehab. We call it work with people too. So like if you go into that joint replacement with the rest of the body as aligned and as functional as possible, that's going to help with the outcomes after. So in the case of a knee, right, if we see that the knee is misaligned and that's causing the arthritis, they will replace the knee. They will align the joint itself. But that doesn't mean that the muscle they don't realign the muscles. They don't activate the muscles, especially if it's an ankle or a hip or upper back related issue.

So oftentimes we'll see after a joint placement that there's a symptom on either the other side that wasn't painful before or elsewhere in the body because there's a compensation now that happened from that surgical procedure. So in order to mitigate that happening for clients as best as possible. And, you know, make sure that, that, that the joint that is replaced is mechanically as efficient as possible after they get it done. We help people with that too, like putting in the work before and it means that you're going to get the best possible outcomes afterwards. 

Yeah, that is a big part of what we do. And I mean, honestly, hip replacement surgery is pretty good now. Like you do come out of it and get moving pretty quickly, but there is a huge discrepancy between people who work at balancing their bodies and people who don't. And it's not even the pre to, it is also after because you get PT. And then like, as soon as you're as functional as you were, like a little bit better when your hip was, you know, not working, you're, you're graduated, you're done. But you're in no way evenly balanced or by no means strong enough to actually use your body in a balanced way.

And so that's another big piece of it. If you have had hip surgery and you're still having hip pain, maybe on the other side, maybe on the same side, like you just need to balance yourself out. It's all about balance. It really is. 

Yeah. There's compensations that are from the, you know, pre replacement that just traditional rehab is not going to look at, but then compensation from the surgery, right? Our brains can't tell the difference between surgery and injury. You know, in the brain's view it's all injury. You know, tissues were cut. Something happened internally, which is also going to trigger another compensation. So if all these patterns aren't being adjusted, like you're saying, it's where I'm like, well, most common things we'll see with people, low back pain, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, there's a hip replacement.

Or I had my hip done, or my knee done, you know, years ago. And now, you know, having back pain, just because that compensation that causes stress elsewhere. 

Yeah. And where one joint replacement becomes another joint replacement or like in your degenerative disc disease where, you know, a fusion, you know, the above and below segments, you know, then become affected and, you know, there's proprioceptive loss with surgery.

There's, there's other, you know, things that in terms of muscle strengthening that those things will happen as well. So there's you know, sort of this deconditioning that can happen as well. But, yeah, if we can get a hold of people before and then after, even better. Prepare or delay, like we talked about delaying the surgery, absolutely. Or avoiding it altogether too. So, you know, we don't know until we get you in front of us and we can get a good idea as far as trajectory and so forth. But it's pretty amazing. Some people and I'm sure all of you have seen this too. Where they improve rapidly and they see significant, you know, improvement in their pain and their symptoms, where they're like, well, that's the only reason why I wanted to get the surgery was because I couldn't stand the pain.

And if, if we can affect their pain quickly, which happens in many cases, then we're good. And then it goes to lifestyle, like, okay, can you do the things that you want to do, you know, freely and not have consequence to them? Then that's big too. So, you know, there's different sort of a progression of things, but if we can at least get the pain to subside or you know, get around that as far as like, again, you know, making the articulations, making the body work as a unit, distributing forces across the body, like it's supposed to then great.

And then, and then it's like, okay, well, let's make sure we can do all the things that you enjoy so your quality of life is not impaired. 

Yeah, absolutely. And that's what it's all about, right? You know, being able to do what you want to do, when you want to do it, to the level that you want to do it at.

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