Joint Pain Conditions

How your Osteopath can help your joint pain condition:

Osteopaths are well known for treating the spine but not everyone is aware that we are also trained to diagnose and treat joint pain. Osteopaths are taught a range of orthopedic tests for all the joints in the body. This even includes joints such as the jaw ( known as TMJ: tempero-madibular joint), or fingers and toes!

Joint pain can be caused by injury affecting any of the ligaments, bursae, or tendons surrounding or structures (such as cartilage, meniscus, ligaments) contained within a joint. Some joint conditions such as Arthritis even causes changes in the structures of the bones which may then lead to trapped nerves, nerve irritation or tendonitis. Osteopaths are trained to test all these structures and joints using various orthopedic tests, which assist us in diagnosing where the problem lies.

There are many possible causes of joint pain. It can occur as a result of joint inflammation caused by:

•  Wear and tear or 'degeneration'. We refer to this as Osteo-Arthritis and it's the most common cause we see At The Backbone clinics.
• Autoimmune conditions (e.g.  rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis).
• Vitamin deficiency particularly Vitamin D or B.
• Side effect of medication (most commonly The Backbone patients experience joint pain from Cholesterol medication).
• Psycho-somatic reaction. Stress related. For example as a result of grinding teeth when asleep.
• Infections.
• We are relieved to say that it is rare, but cancer can also cause joint pain. At the Backbone we have successfully referred patients to the GP for further investigation. As a result we have helped patient diagnoses in early stages.