PT Blog

What is DDD?   Degenerative disc disease is a condition that occurs over time because of wear and tear.  Disc disease can occur anywhere in the spine, but is most common in the cervical and lumbar spine (the 2 areas of the spine where we have a lordotic curve). Degenerative disc disease involves a compression or flattening of the disc that results in increased stress on the joints and nerve roots that exit out of each vertebral segment.  This results in increased pain, stiffness...

Do You Have Hip Arthritis? The “What to do” Guide on Hip Arthritis Arthritis is normal.  There, I said it, it's NORMAL.  If anyone came to me and said that they were arthritis free (after the age of about 25) I would simply just think that they were a couch potato and literally did nothing all day.  The most common type of arthritis is what is known as osteoarthritis (OA). This type of arthritis is the most common in the USA, and affects more than 20 million peopl...

This week’s osteoarthritis article is all about the shoulder. This is one of the more common conditions that are present with patients we see for shoulder pain. Several weeks ago, I had an article I wrote talking about rotator cuff injuries. Several of the same rules and concepts overlap here. Just like with most arthritic conditions, this takes quite a while to develop. However, traumatic injuries such as dislocations can speed up the degenerative process. True OA is essentially inflamma...

So what is osteoarthritis and do I have it? You might have heard the phrase “bone on bone”, and this might sound scary but there are ways to help reduce your pain. Osteoarthritis can be synonymous with degenerative joint disease. This occurs over time as the cartilage that lines the bones between joints begins to thin with age. As the cartilage thins, inflammation and swelling can occur from the rubbing of the two surfaces. This is a common condition that occurs in adults over the ag...

Got Something on Your Mind? The Truth About Headaches and Treatments We all know how painfully brutal “dad jokes” can be.  This is a similar sensation to headaches; and if you're like my family, my wife gets a lot of these kinds of headaches, and mostly driven by myself.    Unfortunately, this is not the only way in which headaches manifest themselves.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the prevalence of headaches worldwide is about 50 of ...