What is Arthritis/Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD)

We chat to Jack March, a Specialist Rheumatology Physio about his role in practice as an Advanced Level Physio at Nuffield health, alongside that he is also Project lead of The Physio Matters Podcast and has lectured extensively on Rheumatology, arthritis and Inflammatory Back Pain. In this episode, we chat about what Arthritis actually is and the ways in which exercise and lifestyle can help to optimise your body system. It’s a huge topic and Jack shares some great advice about joint inflammation what any individual can do to optimise and access the right resources at the right time.   KEY TAKEAWAYS The term arthritis means joint inflammation, Osteoarthritis is the most common form with the joint ageing over time. Anything that increases the resting level of inflammation slightly to a higher level will then accelerate the age-related changes to your joints. Everyone’s joints deteriorate but it is individual in terms of when it happens and whether there is pain and osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis isn’t about developing a disease it’s about altering the speed of the normal ageing experience. You have to take people on their individuality and if you have pain the treatment is the same as the treatment to reduce the risk of it happening. Your genetic component is linked to your predisposition and pain threshold response. If the issue isn’t keeping you awake at night and it isn’t reducing the distance you can walk to a great degree that is restrictive then a joint replacement is not the right solution. You need to optimise your body system and exercise is anti-inflammatory in its own right. The biggest change comes in changing the body system through exercise, dietary and lifestyle choices. Exercise has many beneficial effects including; the anti-inflammatory component, improvement of the joint and weight loss. The short term fixes don’t work whilst the longer-term fixes do work you just need to be consistent and persevere. If your symptoms are mild then seek early advice from a healthcare professional who can help you on the right path moving forwards   BEST MOMENTS ‘Some people can have a small change to the joint and lots of pain whilst others could have a large change to the joint and very little pain’  ‘There are 5 types of different arthritis but hundreds of different conditions that can cause it’ ‘It’s always about treating the person’   VALUABLE RESOURCES The Back Pain PodcastFree Sciatica guide: www.thebackpainpodcast.com  https://rheumatology.physio   https://nass.co.uk   ABOUT THE HOSTS Dave ElliotDave is the owner of Advanced Chiropractic, a chain of Chiropractic and massage therapy clinics in Essex, UK. Dave still sees patients during the week but has been working hard to talk to as many experts in the field of back pain as possible to help distil all the information and bring it to you in this awesome podcast. You can find Dave on any of the Advanced Chiropractic social media platforms, or you can contact him @ [email protected] if you have any questions for him.-Instagram   Rob BeavenRob owns and runs a multidisciplinary clinic, The Dyer St Clinic in Cirencester Gloucestershire. His team of Chiropractors, Physiotherapists, Osteopaths, Doctors and podiatrists all collaborate on thousands of back pain patients every year. Alongside Dave, he has worked hard to bring to the table experts across all industries to give you the low down on back pain, with steps you can implement today to start feeling better.-Instagram -Twitter CONTACT METHOD Instagram Twitter Facebook [email protected]  Support the show: https://thebackpainpodcast.com