What Is Arthritis?

Written By: Dr Evan Steinke, Bkin, DC

Arthritis is often talked about when we discuss joint pain and stiffness but there are so many different kinds that it becomes overwhelming to know what it is and if it applies to you. The word arthritis comes from, “arthro” meaning joint, and “itis” meaning inflammation, so in the most broad sense arthritis is inflammation of joints. The inflammation of these joints leads to a host of symptoms including pain, stiffness and swelling and may range from mild to severe in intensity. While anyone can develop arthritis, including children, it is most common in older adults.

There are many different types of arthritis but two of the most common forms are osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). While they both affect the joints, they’re quite different in terms of cause, progression, and treatment.

Osteoarthritis (OA):

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis and usually develops slowly over time, nicknamed the “wear and tear” arthritis. OA occurs overtime when the cartilage in joints breaks down and no longer supplies a cushion between the two bony surfaces of a joint. Without that buffer, bones can rub against each other, leading to pain, swelling, and reduced motion. It is important to note that OA is due to the mechanical wearing down of a joint over time. The body has limited ability to restore these joint surfaces and treatment provided often looks to minimize progression and strengthen affected areas. Treatment could include active release technique on surrounding muscles, chiropractic manipulation of the affected joint, and joint rehabilitation and strengthening.

Key Features of OA:

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA):

Rheumatoid arthritis is not due to mechanical wearing down of the joint but rather is when your own immune system attacks the joint. The exact reason for why the immune system begins to attack your own joints is not fully understood. However, once the immune system begins to attack the joints it causes damage which in turn leads to swelling, pain, and stiffness. In general RA tends to attack the joints symmetrically, meaning you may see it in both hands, both knees, etc. Additionally, RA can affect more than joints including your skin, eyes, lung, heart and other organs. Treatment for this form of arthritis will often include being referred to your family physician for medications that target the inflammation and immune system to limit further damage to the joints. Physical therapies may also show benefits depending on the severity and progression of the arthritis. If you are unsure of where to start, checking in with your chiropractor will help get you the correct diagnosis and any referrals that may be necessary.

Key Features of RA:

Conclusion

Arthritis can affect people in many different ways, and understanding the type you are dealing with is key to finding the right treatment approach. Whether it's the wear and tear of osteoarthritis or the immune system involvement of rheumatoid arthritis, getting the right diagnosis and care early on can make a big difference in your long-term joint health and quality of life.

If you're experiencing joint pain, stiffness, or simply have questions about your joint health, our Unified Team of Experts are to help. You can find Dr. Steinke at AST Westman — contact the clinic today to book your appointment and start your journey toward feeling your best.

Mindful Eating Tips For The Holiday's

Written by: Kira Greasley, BA, Nutritional Holistic Consultant,

Have you ever felt so stuffed that you could not move after one or several holiday festivities? I know I have! So for this holiday season, I am going to arm you with a few mindful eating tools, that will have you enjoying your festivities without that overstuffed feeling.

Tip #1: Size does matter. Choose the smaller plate and don’t load it up! I know this is a hard one when we are presented with so much amazing food, but trust me, this is an important one. Only take enough food to cover your plate, don’t build a mountain. You can always go back for seconds!

Tip #2: Build the colours of the rainbow with your food. This is a simple way to ensure you are getting the variety of required nutrients to nourish your body from head to toe.

Tip #3: Did you know that digestion begins with our eyes and nose? Sight and smell are the senses that activate our salivary glands. Take time to appreciate the beauty of the meal, deeply inhale the aromas, and feel gratitude for the food before you.

Tip #4: Chew your food, aiming for a minimum of 20 chews per bite (the recommended is 50). In our fast paced world, this step is often overlooked, causing large chunks of food to not be properly broken down and mixed with our saliva. This places excess strain on our guts, generating stress hormones which obstruct the production of stomach acid shutting down the digestive process, and leading to indigestion.

Tip #5: Put down your utensils after each bite as this will allow yourself time to chew instead of placing more food into your mouth. By doing this simple step, we allow our brain the time needed to catch up with the signalling from our stomachs preventing that  “overstuffed” feeling.

Tip #6: Take small sips of room temperature water as needed. Drinking too much water during a meal can dilute your stomach acid, hindering the break down of food, leading to indigestion and other issues.

Tip #7: Everything in moderation.

Here’s to a safe and happy holiday season and remember, it is never too late to set YOUR stage for LIFE!

Nutritionally Yours,

Kira Greasley

Book In With Kira today for all of your holistic nutritional needs!

Active Release Therapy for Sciatica

By: Active Sports Therapy

Sciatica is a pain syndrome that is caused when the sciatic nerve is compressed by muscles located within the pelvis. The sciatic nerve branches from the lower back, through your hips and buttocks, and then it heads down each leg.  A person with symptoms of sciatica might experience the following:

The pain is often one-sided, and extends from one’s lower back down through the leg, and, in some cases a person may feel they symptoms all the way down to their toes. This usually is dependent on where exactly the sciatic nerve is being affected.

Causes of Sciatica

The main causes of sciatica are:

Treatments

At Active Sports Therapy, one treatment we use for sciatica is Active Release Therapy/Active Release Techniques®. To help with sciatica, ART can be helpful in that it can break up adhesions and scar tissue, as well as reduce any muscle spasms that are contributing to the problem. This will help to take the pressure off of the neve, allowing the symptoms to ease and often resolve. The practitioner will treat the soft tissue of the area by using a hands-on treatment that uses pressure and movements to work on the tendons, muscles, and fascia associated with your issue.

In addition to Active Release Therapy, acupuncture and cupping can also help relieve the symptoms of sciatica. For a deeper look into sciatica, please visit Dr. Corey Finan's blog, The Many Faces of Sciatica.

What You Can Do to Help With Your Sciatica Problem

  1. Maintain a healthy body weight.
  2. Take regular stretching breaks if you have an occupation that requires sitting. Stand up, move around, and employ some stretches that specifically target tight muscles that can lead to sciatic pain such as the piriformis.
  3. Exercise and working to build strong core and back muscles will improve your posture and in turn allow your body to move and sit in a more proper way, taking some of the pressure off of the sciatic nerve.
  4. Use ice and heat as needed. Alternating ice and heat can help bring some relief to sciatica sufferers. Remember that ice is anti-inflammatory and heat provides relaxation and increased blood flow. You will need both to combat this pain as opposed to just heat alone.
  5. Try laying on your back on the floor with a pillow under your knees. The floor is better than laying in a soft bed because of the support that it will provide.

Please give us a call if you are looking for help with your sciatica at 403-278-1405. Our team will be happy to setup an appointment for you. The earlier you start treatment, the sooner you’ll see results!

*This blog is not intended to officially establish a physician-patient relationship, to replace the services of a trained physician, naturopathic doctor, physical therapist or chiropractor or otherwise to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.  

Treating Piriformis Syndrome

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text]By: Dr. Corey Finan BSc., DC, CCSP, RMT, ART

In order to properly treat piriformis syndrome, it is important to understand that the piriformis muscle is either spasming, or is inflamed.  Both situations can cause their own problems.  If you are getting numbness down your leg, the muscle is probably spasmed.  A spasmed muscle can cause local pain as well, so hip pain with numbness down the leg is a very common presentation of piriformis syndrome.  An inflamed muscle will cause the sciatic nerve that sits in close proximity to it to also get inflamed in some cases.  When this occurs, you will typically feel pain in the hip along with a burning pain radiating down your leg.

Understanding which situation is causing your particular symptoms can allow your practitioner to accurately treat it.  For example, a spasmed muscle will require work on the muscle to relax it, and techniques such as Active Release, Shockwave Therapy (in chronic cases), deep tissue massage and even Dry Needling (IMS) can help.  These all work to relax the spasm.  Home stretching would also be of benefit.

Active Release Techniques or ART is the gold standard for soft tissue treatment and is extremely effective at treating piriformis syndrome.  The practitioner starts with your muscle in a shortened position, and your leg is then moved to bring the muscle into a lengthened position while the doctor’s thumb tensions the muscle in the direction opposite to the muscle.  Think of a string with beads on it.  If you want to remove the beads, you would place your thumb beside the bead, and pull on the string.  The shear force generated unwinds the tightened muscle, causing the release of tension.  Hence the name Active Release.

Shockwave Therapy utilizes a compressive pulse of air that generates a shockwave to disrupt the muscle and create a release of tension.  It is the equivalent to about 5 times a normal ultrasound wave.  Thus it is a significant pulse created into the soft tissues of the hip to cause the spasm to decrease.  It is great for chronic conditions, but is ineffective for new injuries.

Dry needling can be used to release the spasm from the inside out.  Using an acupuncture needle, the practitioner can insert the needle right into the spasmed part of the muscle causing a local twitch response that in effect resets the electrical tone of the muscle back to the baseline, causing a release in the muscle tension.  It can be fast and effective, but it does not lengthen the muscle like Active Release does, so you run the risk of the spasm coming back again.

Deep tissue massage is great at releasing muscle spasms through active massaging of the affected muscle, and if a stretch component is added by the therapist it can be very effective.  It is considered a passive treatment, and unfortunately if the muscle is not also lengthened, then the same results as dry needling can occur where the spasm recurs.

If the muscle is inflamed, then things change somewhat in regards to care.  First and foremost, Active Release can still be performed to help release the muscle tightness or inflammation, and cause increased blood flow, oxygen flow and create and environment for healing.  On top of active release, low intensity laser can be extremely helpful in reducing the inflammation.  If it is badly inflamed, we can also bring in the game ready ice compression machine which will circulate near freezing water through a compressive cuff (similar to a blood pressure cuff) and cool down the hip muscles removing deep and/or plentiful inflammation.

Any and all of the following treatments for Piriformis Syndrome can be found at AST.  If you are suffering from piriformis syndrome quit suffering and give us a call.

*This blog is not intended to officially establish a physician-patient relationship, to replace the services of a trained physician, naturopathic doctor, physical therapist or chiropractor or otherwise to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.  [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The Many faces of Sciatica…

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text]By: Dr. Corey Finan DC

What exactly is Sciatica? 

Well, besides being a scary sounding problem, it is one of the most misunderstood health care conditions out there.  Why is that?  Well, to begin with, true sciatica is a very narrowly defined condition.  Wikipedia, and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary all define it as “pain along the course of a sciatic nerve especially in the back of the thigh broadly : pain in the lower back, buttocks, hips, or adjacent parts”.  The Mayo Clinic, WebMD and Merck Manual go further and describe how it originates “Sciatica most commonly occurs when a herniated disk, bone spur on the spine or narrowing of the spine (spinal stenosis) compresses part of the nerve.”  The resulting symptoms are usually pain, and often numbness in the affected leg.  Typically the pain will radiate down the back of the leg past the knee to the foot.  When the nerve is compressed (i.e. pinched) you will typically get numbness in the leg from the point of compression down.  This numbness is the result of the nerve signal not being able to get from the area downstream of the compression up to the brain which is upstream of the compression.  Thus the brain gets no signal from the downstream part of the leg, and our brain interprets a lack of signal into what we call numbness.

We’ve established that most true Sciatica comes from nerve compression in the low back either due to a disc issue, spinal stenosis (closing of the opening for the spinal cord due to increased bone growth), or bone spurs that affect the nerve roots in the back.  None of these sound like fun, nor do they sound like things that just happen.  In fact other than the disc derangements that can cause sciatica, none of the conditions that cause sciatica are quick.  There is usually some indication that things are going gravely wrong in your back long before you get Sciatica.

Just to clarify, what we know about true sciatica is that it is often slow developing (over years), is usually due to some form of alteration in the structures of the low back, and often will have numbness and radiating leg pain as symptoms.  Other indications can lead to the diagnosis of true sciatica, such as clinically having a positive Straight Leg Raise, Well Leg Raise, and / or Slump test.  Each of these orthopedic tests look at how the spinal nerves are moving within the spinal cord, and if there is an issue such as any of the items that can cause sciatica, you will get a painful positive result on the tests.

Why do I keep saying “true” when referring to Sciatica?  For the simple reason that people get leg pain, but it is not due to any of the conditions outlined above.  So a new designation was coined for all other causes of Sciatica, and those terms are “False Sciatica”, “Pseudo-Sciatica”, “Sciatica-Like pain syndrome”, and the list goes on and on.

Why is it important to distinguish between true sciatica and all others?  Because statistics show that of those with true sciatica, 90% are caused by either disc derangements, bone spurs, and stenosis in the spine.  The other 10% are caused by varying conditions including space occupying lesions (tumors), neurodegenerative conditions, and more obscure conditions.  So then if 90% of true sciatica is due to low back irregularities, what percentage of people coming in with leg pain is made up of people with true sciatica?  According to a 2007 study published in the British Medical Journal, about 5-10% of people with low back and/or leg pain have true sciatica.  So, when you crunch the numbers, you have 90% of 10%, or 9% of the total number of people coming in with low back and leg pain being due to true sciatica.  To put it into context, in my busy practise over the course of a complete year I may see between 5 and 20 patients that have True Sciatica, while I see upwards of 100’s that have Pseudo Sciatica.

Why is this important? Because there is a saying that goes like this:  “If you live in Alberta and you hear the sound of hooves behind you, you should think ‘A horse is coming’”.  And if you lived in Africa, you’d think “A Zebra is coming”.  The point is, you should look for the most common cause to be the most likely cause, unless something points you in another direction.

So, we have established that most radiating leg pain that comes into a common practise will MOST LIKELY be from something other than a spinal condition that pinches the sciatic nerve.  What does that leave us with as the most common cause of radiating leg pain?  It may surprise you to find out that it is actually trigger points in the muscles in and around the hip.  Most hip muscles will refer pain down the leg in a rather predictable pattern.  Trigger points arise in muscles due to overuse.  They are focal points within a muscle that maintain a spontaneous electrical activity when at rest while the rest of the muscle exhibits no resting electrical activity.  Most people call them “Muscle Knots”, because you can feel them as tightened bands within the muscle belly.  It is not surprising that the mother of trigger point research Dr. Janet Travell, M.D. called the Gluteus Minimus the pseudo-sciatic muscle, because even back in the 1970’s when she was doing her research she realized that trigger points within that muscle mimicked the pain that true sciatica caused patients.  The only difference is that the Gluteus Minimus is much more common a cause of leg pain that true sciatica.

Another very common cause of referred leg pain can be from sciatic nerve irritation as it exits the hip through the piriformis muscle before darting down the leg.  Inflammation can irritate nerves, and an inflamed piriformis can trigger leg pain that runs down the back of your leg.  This is common enough to have a syndrome named after it, appropriately called Piriformis Syndrome.

These two muscle conditions are the most common causes of leg pain that goes down the back or side of the leg ending either above or below the knee.  They typically are seen in patients who sit for long periods at work, engage in strenuous activities involving the hips (jumping sports, running sports, dancing, etc.), and people who are unable to properly engage their core prior to leg movement.  These all set up the environment for the hip muscles to become overused, tired, and tight.  This process develops slowly over a number of weeks or years.  Once the muscles reach a certain point they become so tight that trigger points can develop.

The good news is hip muscle strains / trigger points are fixable.  Active Release Technique (a chiropractic soft tissue treatment involving stretching and releasing of trigger points, fascial restriction, and muscle tightness) can effectively reduce the trigger points and resolve your leg pain.  Further, dry needling into the trigger point can be of benefit for stubborn cases.  By releasing the tension within the hip muscles, the pain will dissipate, and functionally normal range of motion can be re-established, leading to proper joint function, and feeling better.  At Active Sports Therapy we can effectively treat your leg pain and get you back to doing what you love best.

 

*This blog is not intended to officially establish a physician-patient relationship, to replace the services of a trained physician, naturopathic doctor, physical therapist or chiropractor or otherwise to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.  [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]