Sore Joints and Easy Fixes aka Feed the Need It seems a fair number of my patients run into joint pain or dysfunction at some point in their lives. I used to think it was purely an old animal disease, but the longer Ive practiced, the more I see its possible to have joint problems at any time along ones life path. Structurally, the joint is two bone ends that oppose one another and articulate, i.e. bend. The ones we usually think of are the knees or elbows or shoulders or hips. But did you ever think of the spine as a long series of joints? Yep, it is, and we can see joint pain there, certainly, as well as distortion and dysfunction. Common to all joints is cartilage, the shock absorber on the ends of each bone that allow for smooth motion between them. Youve seen it in tearing into a chicken bone, likely, as the soft padding at the end of the drumstick. In a live animal, this tissue is constantly wearing and getting replaced, as cells die and new ones are made from the existing ones dividing. When analyzed, a high amount of GAGs are in this cartilage, a complex substance called GlucosAminoGlycans (I just capitalized those letters to tie it to the abbreviation earlier). These are often the basis for supplements like chondroitin and glucosamine, now common in many various brands. In addition to the cartilage, joints, even the really small ones between spinal bones, have a lovely lubricating goo called joint fluid. You may have seen supplements that utilize a key component of joint fluid: hyaluronic acid. Again, the purpose is to keep our joints and those of all mammals moving friction free and smoothly. But heres one a client taught me years ago, after my homeopathic prescribing wasnt quite hitting the mark and improving her dogs lameness. A few months went by between appointments, and when we spoke again, I asked about the sore joints. Oh, shes doing great now. I found something that really helped her from the grocery store. Expecting to hear of some supplement, she instead told me how shed made a point of feeding an abundance of cartilage to her dog, in the form of joint ends and chicken necks! (Imagine how many joints are in a neck, right?) Eating that, the dog had slowly become less and less lame until it just wasnt an issue any longer. Well, you can imagine this wasnt expensive nor was it a lot of work. It was just keeping an eye out for those parts of the prey that were rich in GAGs naturally, and feeding them to her dog on a regular basis. This wouldnt work for the herbivores like our horses, obviously, but we can supplement them with the good materials joints are made of. Hyaluric acid is in common use for these guys.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 13:10:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015