It has been my experience that most people tend to rely on pain as the ultimate indicator that they have a problem. For comparison’s sake, I normally say that if you think that way from a dental standpoint, by the time your mouth begins to hurt all day, every day, you have oftentimes waited too long to save the tooth and/or teeth that are causing that pain.
From a chiropractic standpoint, oftentimes the same is true. It is possible to have fixated joints in the spine (or any of the joints in the body) that don’t hurt all day, every day. By the time those joints do begin to hurt all day, every day (just like cavities form and fester in teeth) osteoarthritis can form and fester to the point of surgery being the only answer at that point. (And oftentimes, surgery is not the answer to a pain-free existence either.)
Wolff’s Law states that “wherever you put stress on a bone in the body, the body will create new bone.” Every time you attempt to move a joint that is not aligned properly, it is impossible for that joint to move the way that God designed it to, and that puts aberrant stresses on those joints. Excess bone formation at the site of the stress on those joints is what osteoarthritis is.
Prime example: I once had a patient who, when she began feeling better, stopped coming in to see me. After a few years, she started experiencing some aches and pains—primarily in one of her hips. To make a long story a little bit shorter, she now is in need of one of her hips to be surgically replaced. I am an extremity joint specialist within the world of chiropractic, so had she continued to come in (at least periodically), I could have kept her abreast of the status of her joint motion (primarily in her hips) and prevented that surgery from having to occur.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Early detection and early correction are always the best way to go!