Problems diagnosed as Osteoarthritis CAN be cured in some cases.

I've put the full link in the post but instead of trying to "trick" the system and post links, as I advised above, just write your post then send the link via the message service if you don't want the delay of moderating.

Regards,

Alan

I found the Osteopedia both mind-blowing and dauntingg. This will take time (perhaps never!) to understand, but I did find several pages that seemed relative to my injury. Not sure about the manipulation techniques described, because they do seem in most cases to require a manipulator. But I am definitely going to try some of the movements. I was originally considering gentle stretching, but I now see this is not recommended if discomfort results.

Not that I expect you to respond to this, but my limitations - movements that cause sharp pain - are as follows:

Lifting the foot (standing or sitting) across the opposite ankle, calf...as in putting on socks. Sharp pain occurs mainly in the groin, and somewhat in the hip. I do tend to put the sock on the floor and wriggle my toes into it first, and then stretch down to pull it on. No doubt a funny sight.

Lifting the knee straight up (standing) is not uncomfortable, although I must lower it very slowly. It's only when I have to lean down at the same time, as in lifting the foot into the left leg of pants.

The main one (and what can be done about that?) is after sitting for a length of time. I must stand up very slowly, place my left foot flat to the floor, heel down simultaneously, and stand up straight slowly. If I forget to do this, my first couple of steps are painful, mostly felt in the groin.

I have been working on stretching my left side, sitting, standing, prone and it feels very good to do. I think I am lop-sided. I normally have very good posture, but now I am really concentrating on sitting very straight, and standing very tall. There is definite improvement all over.

I do get a little swelling in the ankle on the bad side from sitting too long. This is normally not a concern - fluid retention, whatever, but I thought perhaps it's another indicator of the source of the problem.

Last, for now at least, I definitely have this spongey feeling in the groin. Palpating the area (and the hip) reveals nothing to me. I have no idea what I'm feeling for!

I've been doing a lot of "talking" (and occasionally cursing) to my pain. Perhaps it's starting to listen to me.

Whatever the outcome of our chats, you have made such a difference to my outlook. For that alone I am indebted to you.

What happens if you lie on your back and lift your knee to your chest? To your opposite shoulder? Lift your knee up, but outwards - so if right leg is your bad leg lifting your knee up and to the outside of your right shoulder.

What happens if you relax and (lying on your back as above) let someone else take your leg through these movements. Is there any difference in pain or range of motion with passive movement?

These were the main restricted/painful movements with me too - mine all turned out to be down to the twisted pelvis. Not a hip problem at all.

You say you're lopsided. A twisted pelvis makes you lopsided. I would try and establish if there's a twist in your pelvis if I was you.

A simple test for sacral torsion.

Your sacrum is the bit at the bottom of your spine. There are two little bony 'lumps' on it. Feel them. Does one side feel more prominent than the other? If so, it would indicate that your sacrum is rotating towards that side.

Is one higher than the other? You'd need someone to help you with this bit really. Try testing lying, standing - if one side is higher that's the way the sacrum is leaning.

You see, the sacrum rotates around a diagonal axis. As you walk, it bends and rotates one way then the other. The right side of my sacrum is more prominent - it's rotating RIGHT. The right side of my sacrum is lower than the left - it's leaning RIGHT. This is a condition called RIGHT on RIGHT sacral torsion.

You wouldn't necessary feel it or be aware of it. You'd be more aware of feeling lopsided. As the sacrum rotates and bends one way, the lumber spine rotates and bends the opposite way, and the thoracic the opposite to lumber.

Stand relaxed with feet shoulder width a part. Just as you'd normally stand. Look down - is one foot forward of the other? Is one side of your pelvis forward of the other?

You said you had an injury a while back. Do you know what muscle was injured?

Later on today I'll post up on my website a video animation of what happens to the pelvis during normal gait. This helps you to understand the implications of having a pelvis out of whack. I'll post the link to the website in the next message - all that's on it so far is pretty much my first post on this thread, but I'll start adding some resources.

Just to stress - I'm not claiming to cure arthritis on it! More just as I'm saying here - that in MY case either it was missdiagnosed or I managed to cure it. But mine was described as a classic case - no doubt over diagnosis. I'm just planning on sharing my story and the things that I learned over the years.

I am not young, 74 this year, so perhaps you will now lose interest in me. But I am remarkably strong and determined, and happen to believe that age does not automatically mean that we must fall victim to diseases associated with certain stages of life. For instance:

Pap tests and breast exams are no longer offered to women over 70. You must request them. Have cancer? Well, how much longer did you expect to be around anyway?

Hip replacement surgery is often delayed as long as possible; the joint will need replacing in about ten years. If you leave it late enough, chances are you'll have died before the next one is due.

I fought with my doctor over the original diagnose of diabetes II. There is no longer any sign of it, yet last week another doctor looked at my file and suggested we should do yet another blood test. In other words, he doesn't trust the last one. Diabetes cannot be reversed, right?

I refused to take cholesterol-lowering drugs (hate any kind of drugs) and managed to lower it with diet. (I am vegetarian). Doctor doesn't like this either. NHS doctors (if you read the news story) want EVERYONE on Crestor, as a preventative. Don't think the recommendation was accepted.

My friend has just discovered she has kidney disease. Her creatinine levels (she now knows) were abnormally high way back when, but only when she mentioned a particular symptom did they acknowledge the disease had been hovering around for a while. She's 75, with heart problems. Kidney disease is hardly worth further effort.

This is not to say that I believe all doctors are anti-age, or that all doctors make mistakes. But I have never accepted a doctor's opinion on something until I've checked it out for myself. I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid. God-like creatures to me then. But I matured. They are human, they live busy lives, they don't necessarily keep up with the latest findings. I am startled at how many things I've read about that the doctor hadn't heard of. No doubt they take a deep breath when I walk in - they expect to be answering a lot of questions.

My mother and maternal grandmother died in their late 90s. My older sister is currently doing yet another round-the-world cruise (she does two a year) at the age of 92. As I have expectations of living another 20 years. I would like to be pain and disease free for as much of that as possible. I want to buy another fixer-upper house to renovate. I'm considering the South of France.

If I can beat this groin issue, you will be forever in my thoughts. I would write a book about you.

But nothing's guaranteed, right?

I'll respond to your earlier post in a separate comment. This one got away from me...

Lifting my left knee outwards towards my left shoulder is painful.

Can locate the "Bumps" of the sacrum, but can't feel a difference between them, and I have no one in the house to take a look.

My normal stance, feet apart as you suggested, seems to show the left foot somewhat ahead of the other. I do seem to want to use my left side with everything, going up the first step, moving from my chair. The right side seems to take a back seat. My twin sons are left-handed, and I often wondered (from the way I use my hands) if I was born left-handed but, because of the reasoning decades ago, I was retrained to use my right. Probably has no bearing on any of this, but thought I'd mention it,

I cannot carry a shoulder bag on my left shoulder. It is much lower (I hope not visibly) on that side. When I sit, if I take notice, I tend to position my weight on the LEFT buttock(!). To compensate, I sometimes put a small cushion under it to get the other side to take that weight. So I do seem to have a definite lop-sided posture, again, I hope not visibly.

I believe I injured the groin around fifteen years ago, renovating an old house, very physical work. I am (or was) extremely strong and did things I probably should have thought about first. I don't recall doing it, only that the next day I could barely move. It kept me off work for a good couple of weeks, but i didn't see a doctor about it. Eventually, over weeks it healed, to the point where I could walk normally. It was months before I could no longer feel the pain completely, and I was very careful with it.

Time passed, and I injured the same place again. (Dancing, this time.) Not as bad, but out of action for a few days. Since then, it's been fairly regular, about once or twice a year. I cannot seem to learn how to be more gentle with my body. Years of exercising, stationery bike, light weights, yoga, were all part of my routine until that injury. I was not a fitness nut. I simply wanted to remain strong and flexible throughout my life. I have a very strong back, and good stomach muscles. But this darned groin thing certainly curtailed some of my routines.

The hip pain only started a few months ago. I had overextended the groin again (getting in and out of a low-slung car) and the next day noticed the hip was sore. It seemed to heal. Then we moved house, much carrying and stooping, of course. And then the hip really started to bother me. and pain extended down my left leg. For a while I felt nothing in the groin, only the hip.

Then the doctor looked at the scan, prodded me here and there, and announced OA in that hip. At no time did he mention anything wrong with the groin, which is where the pain is really seated.

Now, with less physical activity now we are settled, the groin is it's old sensitive self again. One or two days with no discomfort, and then back again. (It hates when I vacuum, or walk uphill.) And when it is back, the hip usually complains too.

I've found that I can now manipulate the hip when it stabs at me (say, on rising from a chair) by digging my fingers in. The pain goes instantly. Doesn't work for the groin, of course.

I think I've covered everything.

Hope I hear more from you. Perhaps my age is a downer.

I've had the same as you at fifty years old - even at 42 when I was first diagnosed - "At your age you just want to be able to do normal every day things pain free". Um - no. Actually I want to be doing hill racing, pullups, deadlifting, karate...and I'm doing it now thank you very much!!

I think probably most people at your age have signs of degeneration in the hip joints on scans or x-ray. Most will be symptom free. So I honestly think that is pretty irrelevant most of the time. A red herring.

I DO think that even at my age doctors tend to just call it OA because they don't know what else to do and (As explained to me by a GP friend) "for most people the outcome will be the same anyway. Most people are too lazy and inactive to do anything about it". That infuriated me - she admitted to me that she deliberately misdiagnoses people (especially older people) because she judges that they aren't worth bothering with!

Lots of what you're saying would make me think there's every chance it's NOT OA causing your problems. So much sounds more like soft tissue. The fact that you can dig a finger in to take pain away - that's soft tissue. The fact that it comes and goes. The fact that you *feel* as if the old injury is rearing it's head again.

The fact that you are lopsided strongly suggests twisted pelvis. I think that's worth pursuing. Simply because any kind of lopsidedness - for whatever reason - is putting your muscles and joints under strain. That WILL lead to pain and restricted range of motion and, eventually joint wear.

I feel strongly that any kind of soft tissue / postural problem / movement impairment should be ruled out before an OA diagnoses. Otherwise how can they possibly diagnose OA? It is FACT that things like twisted pelvis can cause pain and restriction in the hip. It has to be ruled out before you can possibly know what else you are dealing with.

I'm very wary of going to see 'experts'. Even more so at your age I think it highly likely that they'd just tell you that hip OA was causing all of your problems. I always found that all I got for my money was people trying to undermine my confidence.

BUT I wonder in your case if it's worth finding a good chiropractor and having a single visit just to see if they can diagnose the reason for your lop-sidedness. Within a year of my diagnoses I went to a chiropractor. Now I warn you - he ripped me off and conned me into paying for over £1000 of treatment that did nothing. So you need to be very careful as this does seem to be the way they work. But he did detect twisting in my pelvis - unfortunately didn't give me any details about the mechanism of the twisting. I didn't know to ask back then. He was trained to identify these kind of problems. Unfortunately 'clicking' the joints didn't have any positive effect. It might be worth the cost of a visit - just to see if they can detect any twisting and give you details of what is twisting where. But if you do this be very, very careful as I think most will have you going back for countless expensive visits that would achieve nothing with promises of miracles. Maybe even take a friend with you so that they're less inclined to think you're an old lady and an easy touch! If you phoned up and asked if they'd be able to detect any sacral torsion or misplaced in-nominates - tell them you just want that diagnosed. They might try and talk you into an x-ray (that would cost you), but that's not needed to detect something like this. So I'd say a big NO to that. Maybe even some physios could do this - but here in the UK at least they don't have the training.

OR one other thing that might be worth doing. Probably a much better idea actually - contact the people at the Postural Restoration Institute - ask if they have any practitioners in your area. I don't think it'd be too expensive - there's one in my area and he charges the same as a regular physio.

Just be careful when going to these people for help as in my experience they just have you paying for stuff that doesn't work and then they try and tell you the reason it didn't work is because you have OA. In my experience it was always just a big con - deliberate or otherwise. Most aren't trained in dealing with these kind of complex muscle imbalances.

The PRI would be your best bet if they have anyone near you.

I'll dig out some more links (I'll probably get your email and send them that way) that might help you if you prefer to try and figure it out for yourself. In fact, I think you MUST try and figure it out for yourself even if you do go to a professional. I think ultimately you'll have to do most of it for yourself anyway. It may be a day or two so don't think I've lost interest if you don't hear from me for a little while.

There's a video on youtube of an 86 year old gymnast. Look it up - her name is "Johanna Quaas". You've still got 12 years to get to her level of fitness. 12 years is a long time!!!