Arthritis can occur for different reasons. - The most common form, osteoarthritis, occurs from overuse of a joint. The smooth cartilage and bone beneath begin to break down, being replaced with projections or spurs. The cartilage erodes gradually, finally allowing bone to rub painfully on bone. When the cartilage first starts wearing down, you may have no symptoms simply because the nerve endings in the joints haven’t been affected. The pain will gradually appear and grow progressively worse. The joints most often affected are the neck, back, hips, feet, the base of the thumb and the middle and end joints of all the fingers.

Arthritis can also occur as an allergic reaction to foods. In this case targeting the source of the food allergin and controlling your diet will diminish pain to a large extent. As we age our immune system (small intestine) becomes compromised and new food allergies can pop up.

Arthritis is considered a chronic pain as compared to the pains from auto or sports accidents. Always with chronic pain you have a serious underlying weakness of Kidneys and Liver, blood and energy. This is in addition to the wind, cold and dampness that is always present in pain. Even though all three of these factors are always present in obstruction of energy and blood, one usually predominates. We tend to see two types of arthritis: cold arthritis and hot arthritis. The hot kind occurs when wind, cold and dampness have been trapped for a long period of time. The patient will have a lot of inflammation and the joints will feel hot. With the cold type of arthritis you will see nodules on the bones and the joints will feel cold.

Acupuncture and herbs help the pain and swelling in the early stages of the arthritis. It works best at preventing the progression of the disease. Acupuncture strengthens weak internal organs, allows the body to create more natural pain-killing chemicals and increases blood circulation to reduce the swelling.