Two quite different things
Osteoarthritis is the common one: a degenerative process affecting cartilage and joint surfaces, developing over years, typically affecting some joints and not others. It produces stiffness, particularly first thing and after sitting, and pain that tends to correlate with how much the joint has been asked to do.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a different condition entirely: an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the lining of the joints, causing inflammation, pain and, over time, joint damage. It usually affects joints symmetrically, often with prolonged morning stiffness and systemic symptoms. It requires medical management, and if your presentation looks like this you need a GP or a rheumatologist involved, not just us.
What the scan says and how you feel are loosely related
Degenerative change is extremely common on imaging in people with no joint pain at all, and the amount of change visible correlates poorly with how much someone is bothered. That cuts both ways: an unimpressive scan does not mean your pain is imaginary, and an alarming one does not mean you are destined to be limited.
Being clear about what care can do
Chiropractic care does not cure arthritis and does not reverse degenerative change. What it can reasonably contribute to:
- Managing pain and stiffness in and around the affected joints
- Maintaining movement, which matters because joints that stop moving stiffen further and the surrounding muscle deconditions
- Building strength around the joint, which changes how much load the joint surface itself has to absorb: this is the part with the most leverage
- Addressing the compensations that develop when one joint is guarded, and which frequently become their own problem
Why loading matters more than rest
The instinct with a sore joint is to protect it. Beyond the short term that generally backfires: the surrounding muscle weakens, the joint gets less circulation and movement, and its tolerance for load drops further — so ordinary activity provokes it more easily than it did before.
Joints adapt to how they are loaded, and that principle holds for arthritic joints too. Loaded appropriately, tolerance improves. The skill is finding the dose that builds capacity without provoking a flare, which is what a supervised program is for.
How we assess it
A first visit runs about 30 minutes: history, examination of the affected joints and of the movement and loading pattern around them, and screening for features suggesting inflammatory arthritis or another cause needing medical attention.
What care might involve
- Adjustment, usually with lower-force technique, often directed at the segments around the affected joint
- Soft tissue work to the guarding musculature
- Cold laser therapy, which we use in managing arthritic symptoms
- Graded loading and rehabilitation, including PowerPlate, which allows meaningful muscle work at relatively low joint stress: useful when conventional loading is not yet tolerated
Alongside your GP, not instead of
Arthritis management often involves medication, and for inflammatory arthritis it certainly does. What we do sits alongside that. If your presentation suggests inflammatory disease that has not been investigated, the first recommendation will be to see your GP.