Healthy Aging

This time in your life was supposed to be a second childhood, right?  Your kids are (mostly?) grown up and independent, and you’re getting ready for retirement or already there.  There’s increasing freedom to do what you like – travel, pursue new interests or hobbies, spend time socially, and just enjoy life.  Well, in theory anyway.  What you didn’t account for is how stiff, sore, and weak you feel.  You knew about arthritis, but was it really supposed to be this bad?

Let’s start with the good news.  Yes, you can have a fulfilling, healthy golden age with a strong sense of vitality.  You could also have a very challenging time, with stiffness, weakness, or pain preventing you from really living your best life.  Our middle age and senior years are a period of physical and mental changes, and everyone experiences aging differently.

Having a strong support team, including family, friends, your medical doctors, and our team here at Healthy Body will help help you overcome these challenges, freeing you to have the fun, active life you imagined and hoped for!

Here are the “big three” health challenges you might experience as you age:

Stiffness and Limited Mobility

Having trouble turning your head far enough to check your blind spot?  Too tight to follow through on your golf swing?  How about reaching overhead to do a spin while dancing? You’re not alone, this is one of the most common things we all experience as we age.

Our joints are made of bones that glide against each other with a smooth, friction-free surface made of cartilage.  These joints are bathed in a lubricant called synovial fluid which further prevents friction.  As we age, we all experience what some call micro-trauma, and others call wear and tear, throughout our joints.   Tiny little injuries, here and there, that build up over time.  Eventually that smooth surface of your cartilage starts getting rough, and that lubricant fluid gets a little thicker, a little less slick.  When this happens, we start to notice stiffness and discomfort with movement, especially first thing in the morning.    Does any of this sound familiar?

The process described above is what’s known as osteoarthritis or simply arthritis.  In the healthcare world we refer to it as “degenerative joint disease”.  It can affect any joint in your body but most commonly affects the knees, hips, low back, neck, and shoulders.  In a worst case scenario, to avoid the uncomfortable feelings of stiffness, people experiencing arthritis symptoms may start “slowing down”, withdrawing from recreational and social activities.  In a cruel twist of fate, by reducing your activity level, you actually make your arthritis worse.  Your joints are made to move, and not moving them to avoid feeling stiffness and discomfort accelerates the arthritis process.

Here’s the good news:

1. Age related stiffness is mostly preventable.
2. Even if you already have arthritis, it’s possible to significantly reduce the stiffness and soreness.
3. We can help!

Just about everyone experiences some degree of arthritis during their life.   It’s common, expected, and treatable. Our chiropractors and physiotherapists help people with arthritis every day.  Treatment plans usually start with hands-on care for your joints, ligaments, and muscles, to improve flexibility and freedom of movement, and then progress to stretching and exercise plans designed to maximize your flexibility and build strength & endurance in your arthritic joints.

To get started on your path to freedom and mobility, call us at 905-389-9522 to schedule your free phone consultation.

Weakness and Balance Issues

Feeling unsteady on your feet?  Finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with your day to day activities?  Are you avoiding the stairs?  This is preventable and fixable!  Read on to find out how.

As we get older, our hormone levels – the sheer amount and ratio of one hormone to others – changes over time.  The hormones which signal our body to repair and build new tissues, among which are testosterone and estrogen, decrease as we age.  As a result, our muscle and bone strength will naturally decrease over time, on average 10% per decade.

Eventually this loss of strength will become noticeable.  You may notice a decrease in your stamina, weakness in your day to day activities, or start feeling unsteady on your feet.  The clinical name for this condition is sarcopenia.  It has a lot of causes other than advanced age.  Poor diet, lack of exercise, and chronic medical conditions including obesity, diabetes, COPD, rheumatoid arthritis etc all can contribute to sarcopenia.

Age related weakness carries a secondary risk as well: osteoporosis!  As muscle strength drops, so does bone density.  A healthy person falling would probably end up with a few bruises.  Someone with osteoporosis will likely find their weakened bones breaking their fall…literally.

Just like with arthritis, osteoporosis and sarcopenia can easily become a vicious cycles.  As you get weaker and more unsteady on your feet, you reduce your activity level, speeding up the decrease in muscle strength and bone density.

So here’s three pieces of good news (you may notice a pattern here!):

1. Age related weakness and the resulting balance issues are preventable.
2. Even if you’re already feeling weaker or, unsteady on your feet, or have weakened bones, you can regain your muscle strength, bone density, and balance.
3. We can help!

Just about everyone will lose some strength as they get older.   It’s entirely expected, and entirely reversible – it is possible for you to restore your muscle and bones. Our chiropractors and physiotherapists help people with loss of strength and stability all the time.  The treatment approach usually emphasize a thoughtfully crafted and carefully supervised rehabilitation exercise regimen, aiming to restore muscular coordination, control, endurance, and strength.

To get started, call us at 905-389-9522 to book your free 15 minute phone consultation now.

Pain with Movement

Do your shoulders pinch and ache when you reach up to wash your hair?  Feeling an ache in your heels  or knees whenever you take the stairs?  How about an stab in your elbow whenever you try to play badminton or tennis?  These are also preventable and fixable!  Read on to find out how.

Let’s start with some anatomy basics.  Your bones move on each other at their joints.  Muscles pull on those bones to make them move.  Finally those muscles attach to your bones via tendons.  You’ve got 4000 strong but flexible tendons in your body, connecting your muscles and bones together, making your body’s deliberate movements possible.  If you look down at your back of your hand as you move your fingers, those stiff cords under the surface – those are your finger tendons.

Just like with your joints, repetitive motions, stress, or injuries build up over time and may cause inflammation  in your tendons.  Most often this happens with sports and on-the-job injuries, but it can happen to anyone.   Your odds of developing tendon pain increase with age.  Eventually,  inflamed tendons will cause pain when you move your body.  Most commonly this happens in your shoulders when reaching overhead, in your elbows when bending and lifting, and in your knees & ankles when taking stairs.  The clinical name for this condition is tendinitis.

Tendinitis can become a vicious cycle of pain, weakness, and limited motion.  Moreover, inflamed tendons can weaken and tear if not rehabilitated, resulting in permanent loss of function.

Now here’s the good news (I’m starting to sound like a broken record here!):

1. With a healthy lifestyle and the right kind of exercise, it’s possible to prevent or delay tendinitis.
2. Even if you already have inflamed or even partially torn tendons, it’s possible to heal and strengthen your inflamed tendons.
3. We can help!

Tendon injuries are quite common and are treatable.  Timing matters here – these are easier to treat, with better outcomes, the earlier your seek help.  Our chiropractors and physiotherapists assess, treat, and resolve tendon injuries every day.  The approach for this type of treatment varies based on your individual circumstances, but often involves hands-on treatments to the affected muscles, tendons, and surrounding joints, targeted exercise plans designed to restore function and strength to the affected muscles, bracing / splinting to offload stress from the affected tendons, and shockwave therapy to directly stimulate healing of the injured tendons.

To get started, call us at 905-389-9522 to book your free 15 minute phone consult.