Santa Barbara Chiropractor

Santa Barbara Chiropractic is a strong believer that diet, movement, and exercise can reduce arthritis suffering.  Do you suffer from painful arthritis? Do you also have a difficult time with your weight?  If so, more than likely you’re having back pain not only because of arthritis, but also as the eventuality of the burden your weight is putting on your spine.  The body was not intended to carry around additional weight in the form of body fat.  Your spine, which supports your body, is being put under a great deal of strain even if you are merely carrying an extra 20 or 30 pounds everyday. This kind of burden can produce aberrations of the vertebral column. These misaligned vertebra can cause arthritic changes in the spine and persist in aggravating the degenerative changes that are present already. Moreover, your body may compensate in other ways, such as by your hips moving forward or tilting to accommodate the extra pounds.  This can pinch the sciatic nerve, which is intensely painful.

A current survey by the NPD Group, a leading market research firm based in Rosemont, Ill., reveals that about 62% of adults and 34% of adolescents are overweight or obese. The pervasiveness of arthritis escalates with increasing weight. Research indicates that cultivating a healthy weight decreases the risk of developing arthritis in the first place and may slow disease progression. A loss of just 11 pounds can reduce the occurrence (incidence) of new knee osteoarthritis and would do wonders to decrease back pain as well.

A healthy diet and regular exercise is mandatory for a person who desires to overcome their back pain, knee pain, and joint pain in other regions of the body.  Although it’s an obvious solution, it really is the only solution for you to get out of pain and get your life back.

First of all, we’ll talk about the dieting issue.  There are many different ways to diet and many of them are useful only for a limited period.  Unfortunately, the diet industry is not interested in having you lose weight permanently because as a result they would eliminate you as a customer.  Eating a healthy diet (as a lifestyle choice as opposed a temporary fix) and cutting your calories so that you are at a slight calorie “deficit,” is the only way to lose weight in a healthy, permanent manner.  Losing a large amount of weight too rapidly is not only temporary, but perilous. Losing about 2 pounds every week will help you to lose the weight permanently and healthfully.

Research has proved that exercise and physical activity not only reduces pain and improves function, but actually postpones disability. No less than one-half hour of moderate physical activity, a minimum of 3 days a week, has been confirmed to be effective. You can get activity in 10-minute intervals.

In addition to the benefits your joints will undergo from exercise, chiropractic treatment is a highly beneficial way to get mobility back in the joints of your spine and other regions of your body. A well-aligned spine makes exercise and physical activity much easier and will slow down arthritic degenerative changes. The Annals of Internal Medicine published the results of a survey of 232 people who had arthritis and were under a rheumatologist’s care.  Of those people, 63% replied to the survey by saying they were taking advantage of some form of “complementary care” as named by the study.  Of those responders, 31% were utilizing chiropractic. Likely the most impressive statistic was that 73% of those trying chiropractic found it beneficial.  Answering why they’d tried the non-medical chiropractic care, the responders provided a number of reasons: 1) to reduce pain, 2) they’d been told that it helps, 3) they felt confident that it is safe, 4) it had helped someone they knew, and 5) because their prescription medication wasn’t stopping the pain.

Chiropractors, also called doctors of chiropractic, have been aiding men and women suffering from back pain due to arthritis in addition to other arthritic afflictions for over a hundred years. Not only can arthritic pain and degenerative changes in the spine be created by the misaligned vertebra that Dr. Jamie Phillips will fix, if left unattended misalignments can lower resistance and immunity, which can lead to new health challenges.

It is always a good idea to see a health care professional to get information about diet and exercise. If you are interested in highly knowledgeable advice on the type of lifestyle changes that you will required to aid you in managing your arthritis, Dr. Jamie Phillips will be pleased to help you. By the same token, in addition to getting your spine in alignment through gentle adjustments, Dr. Jamie Phillips will analyze any faulty gait patterns or posture irregularities that may be contributing to your arthritic pain.

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