Collaborative action against arthritis

Collaborative action against Arthritis

• A chronic and progressive disease
• Affects all the mobile joints in the body
• Causes joint pain, swelling, loss of function and disability
• Affects both young and old, though more common in those 50 years and above
• Results in degeneration of ligaments and cartilages
• Affects the facet joints causing pain in the spine
• Can deform the fingers, toes and other joints
• Is on the increase due to increase in obesity and sedentary life style
• Does not respond very well to pain medications

For treatment: the best bet is RIT

Action Plan

1. Stop believing that arthritis has no cure
2. Rather, spread the news that it can be cured to a very large extent.
3. Call this number 09098695640 and get anyone you know having joint pains to dial the number
4. Report all cases of arthritis to the above number via text or whatsapp

Low Back Pain

What is Low Back Pain?

Low back pain by definition is pain at the back, in the region between the last rib and the gluteal folds with or without distal radiation to the lower extremity.

How does it come about?

Low back pain is neither a specific disease nor a diagnostic entity, rather it is a symptomatic manifestation of actual or potential tissue damage of varying degree of severity. The actual or potential damage that results in low back pain could be mechanical (musculoskeletal strains, nerve root compression, herniated disc, and degenerative disc and joints) or non-mechanical (inflammatory conditions, infections or tumors) in origin. In addition to these physical causes, referred pain in disorders of internal organs (kidney stones and infection) can also present as low back pain.

What should I do if I have low back pain?

Most low back pain resolve spontaneously as they are as a result of muscle spasms following a night of poor sleep posture or strenuous physical activities. In most cases, all you need to do is massage your back with analgesic creams and you are good to go. But when low back pain persists or keeps coming back, you may have to see your doctor to examine you and probably carry out some tests to identify the possible cause or causes. As the saying rightly goes: the earlier the better.

Must I have Surgery for my low back pain?

No. Surgery is usually the last resort in cases of severe disc hernia or severe narrowing of the spinal canal causing severe compression of the nerves. Apart from those caused by tumors, most cases of low back pain can be treated with conservation treatments and/or RIT which can repair both the mechanical and some of  the non-mechanical causes of low back pain.

What are the predisposing factors of low back pain?

Sedentary life style

Obesity

Poor sleep posture

Lifting heavy objects

Pregnancy

Trauma

Prevalence of Low back pain

About 80% of the adult population will complain of low back pain at one point in their life time.Though most of these cases will resolve, over 28% will end up requiring medical interventions.

Prevention

Get active.

Lose weight

Adequate water intake

Avoid excessive strain on your low back

Good siting posture. No slouching

The following exercises can help you get better

 

When you require treatment, ask for RIT

We will let you know why RIT is the best form of treatment for low back pains in our future publications.

Arthritis

What is it?

Arthritis is a latin words formed from two words: Arthros (of joint) and itis (inflammation). It simply means inflammation of the joint.

Unfortunately when this word was coined, there was a limited understanding of what the disease was. Arthritis was believed and defined as inflammatory disease of the joints. This limited knowledge seems to have persisted till date as most doctors and patients use drugs and treatments that are anti-inflammatory without a lasting positive result. Therefore, the long held believe that arthritis has no cure.

Arthritis is not just the inflammation of the joint. It is actually a degenerative disease of the joint. A disease is a disorder of structure or function in a human producing specific symptom or that affects a specific location and is not a direct result of physical injury. In this case, there is degeneration (destruction) of the joint and its structures. Therefore, the major component of arthritis pathologically is degeneration. It has been postulated that degeneration makes up over 80% of the disease, while inflammation contributes less than 20%.

Going by the erroneous believe, that arthritis is majorly inflammatory disease of the joint, one would suppose that the treatment is the use of anti-inflammatory agents. But nothing could be farther from the truth. This is very evident in people who have used painkillers for years but instead of getting better, the keep getting worse.

Inflammation is the means through which the body heals itself.

The more the degeneration (damage), the more the inflammation in an attempt to heal the damage.

Unfortunately, the inflammatory reaction also produces cytokines which cause more destruction of the joint structures. This is the vicious cycle that goes on in arthritis aiming at the total destruction of the joint.

Arthritis occurs in all the mobile joints in our body including the spine (from neck to low back)

Arthritis is an umbrella name for over 120 diseases that affect the joint with the common symptoms of pain, swelling, loss of function and deformity. These diseases include osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis (rheumatism), fibromyalgia, gouty arthritis, enthesopathy, tendinosis, psoriatic arthritis, etc.t

What is the treatment for arthritis?

The ideal treatment for arthritis is therefore that which to a great extent should be able to stop and even reverse the degeneration in the joints. Since degeneration is the common pathology in all forms of arthritis, this treatment should be used in all forms of arthritis. This ideal treatment is known as Regenerative Injection Therapy (RIT) and other forms of therapies that regenerate the ligaments, tendons and cartilages. Notably are the Prolotherapy, Prolozone therapy, Platelet Rich Plasma therapy, stem cell injection therapy, cold laser therapy etc.

Advice

If you are therefore looking to have a lasting solution to your chronic joint pains or arthritis, request for RIT or cold laser therapy

THE PAINKILLERS MAY BE KILLING YOU

THE PAINKILLERS MAY BE KILLING YOU.

Many people resort to regular consumption of painkillers for their chronic joint pains. In most cases, instead  of noticing improvement in their pains, the contrary is the case. The pain keeps on getting worse. This will lead them to increase the frequency of intake of these drugs or increase the dose or add 2 or more painkillers. Most times, these are done under the instruction of their doctors. Globally the amount of painkillers consumed in a year is in the tune of over $3b US Dollars. 

In Nigeria, the pain medications mostly consumed are Non-Steroidal Antiinflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs), e.g Diclofenac, Ibuprofen; Steroids e.g Prednisolone; Opioids like Codeine and their combinations, Pentazocine, Tramadol etc.

The resultant effect of daily consumption of these drugs can only be imagined: Peptic ulcer disease https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/312045.php, kidney disease. Read more on https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/painmeds_analgesics, heart disease https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-pain-killers-could-be-hurting-your-heart#1. 

Beware of painkillers

REGENERATIVE INJECTION THERAPY: THE JOINT HEALER

REGENERATIVE INJECTION THERAPY: THE JOINT HEALER

Regenerative Injection Therapy (RIT) is an advanced form of treatment used to repair degenerated (damaged) tissues of the joint.

When the joint or any part of our body sustains injury, the first thing we notice is pain. But pain is not the problem. Actually the pain is telling us that there is a problem. Therefore pain is a warning sign that there is something wrong going on with that part of the body.

If instead of listening to this warning and correcting the problem, we suppress the pain by taking pain killers we may be doing ourselves more harm than good.

In some mild conditions the body heals the cause of the pain. This should take place within 1 to 2 weeks and the pain resolves. But when the pain lingers more than 2 months the body may no longer be able to heal it. In that case intervention is needed. This is usually the case with injury to the ligaments, tendons and cartilages. The more you try to suppress the pain the more the pain comes back. Why? Because the body cannot perfectly heal injury to these tissues. They have poor blood supply and do not heal very well but progressively degenerate (damage) more and more. Taking pain killer will not help. The only solution is to heal or repair the damages.

RIT is the only treatment that heals the damages. It rejuvenates and restores the tissues back to normal. RIT is the injection of nutrients or solutions into the joint which are capable of stimulating the ligaments, tendons and cartilages to rejuvenate and heal. When injected, it enhances the production of healing and growth factors to act upon the damaged tissues.

RIT include: Prolotherapy, Prolozone, Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) and Stem Cell Therapy. Prolotherapy is the first form of RIT. Advancement made in scientific research to find better and improved protocols of RIT brought about Prolozone, PRP and Stem Cell Therapy.

Prolozone is a form of RIT where mixture of Oxygen/Ozone plus vitamins and minerals are used to heal the joints.

In PRP, high concentration of platelet with high concentration of the healing and growth factors are injected directly into the joint. The already formed growth factors will start working within one hour after the injection. The PRP is activated by damages in the tissues. Therefore PRP is best for torn ligaments and tendons and damaged cartilages. But for ligaments and tendons which are weak (lax) and causing pains, prolozone is the best option.

Since both weakness (laxity) and damage (degeneration) can exist together in chronic joint pain, it is our practice to combine both prolozone and PRP for our patients. This is what we call Comprehensive Therapy.

Thank you for your interest in Prolozone and PRP. We wish you quick recovery.

Dr Umeh C.I

De Richards Clinic: The pain center

Have you or any of your loved ones been battling the agony of arthritis or any chronic joint pains? Do you live in Nigeria? Look no further. De Richards Clinic, the premiere pain clinic, situated in Ikeja, Lagos State has been using Regenerative Injection Therapy to cure people of arthritis/chronic joint pains for the past two years.
For further inquiries call 09098695640 or visit www.facebook.com/derichardsclinic