This is a copy of a “Letter to the Editor” I wrote a few years ago in response to an article in Newsweek magazine titled, “You, Too, Can Have a Bionic Body”.

Since this is about joints and joint replacement, lets talk about joints.  The joints in your spine are different from those in your pelvis, or your hands or feet.  Wrists, ankles and jaws are each unique.  A knee joint flexes and extends, like the joints of your fingers.  The hip joints, ball and socket joints, have a greater range of motion, and the shoulder joints, which are modified ball and socket joints, allow even greater ranges of motion.  The point is that every joint in the body is designed to move 100% in its normal range of motion.

The spine and pelvis are central, both mechanically and neurologically, to the rest of the body.  Since the vast majority of joint replacements are on hips and knees, it is essential to understand the relationship between the spine and pelvis and the hips and knees.  When the pelvis and spine are not working properly, which is extremely common (just observe people and it’s quite obvious), every step you take, walking, jogging or running, will continue to increase the wear and tear on your hips and knees.  It’s like driving the car with a misaligned front end; you can still drive it, but with each mile, you’re causing tires, ball joints and steering to continually break down.

The fact that most people have one hip or one knee worse than the other is an obvious indication that it’s due to an imbalanced structure or abnormal joint mechanics.

By the way, this gradual and consistent break down of joints has been called arthritis for over a hundred years.  People are told they have arthritis, as if it was the cause of the pain and problem, when in truth, it is the effect of an improperly functioning body.  This is why I say that taking medicine for osteoarthritis may ease your symptoms, but you’re actually doing the body a disservice by hiding the symptoms and ignoring the real problem.

The main question doctors should ask, especially regarding chronic joint pain, is why isn’t this joint healing?  When a joint continues to degenerate, rather than heal, the reason is usually faulty mechanics due to reduced range of motion and/or misalignment. 

In the first paragraph, the author mentions what I feel is the biggest problem; namely, the taking of Aleve and other pain-killing or anti-inflammatory medicine to alleviate symptoms.  Symptoms are the body’s alarm mechanisms, and to simply quiet the alarms of the body by taking these medicines is like taking the batteries out of a smoke detector because you don’t like the noise.  It’s not in the best interest of the building – or body.

Masking pain because you, or the doctor, don’t know what else to do, is counterproductive to healing because the real problem, improper joint movement, is not addressed.  When the pain is alleviated by medicine, the individual now has the illusion that everything is better, and so continues the aggravating activities, further damaging the joint(s) involved.

The joints of our bodies are designed to last a lifetime.  It’s fantastic that these doctors can replace damaged and worn out joints, and I admire both the technology and surgical skills, but I believe we’re always better off with the original equipment.  Understanding and addressing joint pain by improving the way the body functions in our teens, twenties, and thirties can help most of us avoid drugs, surgeries and joint replacement in later years.

I had injured my knees many times in high school sports.  I endured shots of cortisone and even a cast on one leg for a month, but my knees continued to worsen into my mid-thirties.  At that time, a chiropractor told me that until I balanced my pelvis and corrected my cervical spine, my knees would continue to worsen.  So, for the next few years, without doing anything to my knees, I received regular chiropractic care to my spine and pelvis, and guess what?  My knees are better now at 53 years old than they were at 33.  Not only am I twenty years older, but I’m thirty pounds heavier, and my knees are better now than they’ve been in forty years.  I have much greater ease of movement, no pain, and I’m able to do things I couldn’t do in my twenties and thirties.  I don’t mean to sound too facetious, but it’s called healing; and I think as a society, we’re so caught up in pain relief and instant gratification, that we’ve all but forgotten it.  It’s a natural process of living organisms, and ALL of us are capable of it, provided we address the mechanics fairly early.

Two reasons why chiropractic helps the body so well: one, it addresses the mechanics, balancing and improving the ranges of motion in spinal and pelvic joints.  And two, even greater, the spinal cord and spinal nerves become freer, allowing the brain to communicate easier with all the cells, organs and glands of the body, which improves the function of the entire body and mind.

My suggestion to anyone with knee or hip pain would be to see a chiropractor as soon as possible to correct and balance the joints of the spine and pelvis, and give your hips and knees their best opportunity to heal. 

Perhaps with a better understanding of healing and joint mechanics, we can reduce the number of joint replacement surgeries done in the future, instead of the 673% increase by 2031, as one study in your article predicted.

Dr. Richard A. Hall
Chiropractor
Southold, NY