The earlier you can detect a problem, the better you can treat it. That’s obvious. So what about arthritis of the knees?
Is there some kind of way to determine if your knees are becoming arthritic before it even shows up on an x-ray?
A new study says yes.
Researchers recently looked at 4,673 men and women who either had arthritic knees or were especially likely to get them because of past overuse.
They followed the group for seven years using the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index, more commonly referred to as the WOMAC score. The WOMAC score is a set of standardized questions that are commonly used by doctors to score the amount and kind of arthritic pain that patients have.
They were looking to see what the very earliest signs were that indicated that someone was on the road to arthritis of the knees. Here’s what they found. The earliest sign was pain going up and down stairs.
A little later on, patients started to notice pain on walking. After that, as the condition worsened, patients started to notice pain just from standing. And the last symptoms to appear were pain on sitting and while sleeping.
The authors pointed out that as long as you can go up and down stairs without your knees hurting, the odds are good that your knees are free of arthritis.
So How Can You Use This Information?
Well, first of all, if you do notice pain going up and down stairs, don’t wait for it to get worse without doing something. Even if you get x-rays and they don’t show the arthritis yet, this study is telling us that if you have pain going up and down stairs, you are on the way to arthritis. So treat it early and the results are going to be that much better.
Start by taking nutrients that can help stop and even reverse the trend. These include Boswellia, turmeric, yucca, glucosamine, and white willow bark.
The other way that you can use the information is to reassure yourself that you are not getting arthritic knees.
If your knees are sore in certain situations, but not when going up and down stairs, the odds are that something else besides arthritis is going on. Maybe there’s a sprain. Or maybe there’s an internal issue with the cartilage or ligaments in the knee.
In that case Prolozone® is what you might need. As most of my readers already know, Prolozone is a technique I developed over a decade ago that uses the power of ozone to heal these kinds of problems.
You can find a doctor who has been trained in Prolozone therapy by going to The American Academy of Ozonotherapy website: www.aaot.us. And you can learn much more about it in my archives.
Sources:
Hensor, E.M., B. Dube, S.R. Kingsbury, et al. “Toward a clinical definition of early osteoarthritis: onset of patient-reported knee pain begins on stairs. Data from the osteoarthritis initiative.” Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2015 January;67(1):40-7