Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000089A
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00:01 The following program presents principles
00:02 designed to promote good health 00:04 and is not intended 00:05 to take the place of personalized professional care. 00:07 The opinion and ideas expressed are those of the speaker. 00:10 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions 00:13 about the information presented. 00:16 Joints are the very important connections between our bones 00:20 that allow us to move the way that we do. 00:22 And damage to our joints can lead 00:24 to difficult health conditions. 00:26 Join us as we learn how to best manage pain 00:29 right here on the Ultimate Prescription. 00:31 I'm Dr. James Marcum. 00:33 Are you interested in discovering the reason why? 00:37 Do you want solutions to your healthcare problems? 00:39 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:42 Well, you're about to be given the Ultimate Prescription. 00:48 Welcome to the program. 00:49 I'm you host, Nick Evenson, 00:51 and here with my good friend Dr. James Marcum. 00:53 And, Dr. Marcum, 00:54 today we're talking about pain specifically in the joints. 00:57 Yeah, and some principles on joint pains that hold true 01:01 as whenever we have a pain 01:02 that doesn't go away it's a problem. 01:06 If it lasts for long periods of time 01:08 we call that chronic pain. 01:10 And the specialists that deal with joint pains 01:13 are usually orthopedic physicians. 01:15 You know, orthopedic doctors, they specialize in joint... 01:18 If you think about joint pains, Nick, 01:20 we have lots of different joints in our body. 01:22 Yeah, I was gonna ask... Yeah. 01:24 How many joints, do you know? Well, we have lots. 01:26 There are lots of them. We have joints in our hands. 01:28 You know, in our fingers, our wrists, our elbows, 01:31 our shoulders, our hips, and the knees. 01:35 Those are the most common. 01:36 We also have joints in our feet. 01:38 We've already spoken about the feet pain. 01:39 Yeah. 01:41 And getting a diagnosis on joint pain 01:43 is very important, you know. 01:46 Probably the most common causes of joint pain, 01:49 regardless of the joint is trauma and overuse. 01:54 When was the last time you had a problem 01:56 with one of your joints? 01:58 And was it trauma or overuse? 02:00 You know, recently I have had some knee pain going on 02:04 and there's, it's a trauma from long time ago. 02:07 Okay. Yeah. 02:08 And when we have trauma to a joint, 02:11 of course if it's just localized trauma 02:13 in the joint area and is made of muscles 02:16 and ligaments and bones. 02:17 If it's localized and it's not too severe, 02:20 usually just immobilization and it goes away. 02:23 For instance, you broke your arm, 02:24 you put it in a cast, 02:26 you wouldn't keep throwing fast balls. 02:27 That's right. 02:28 So let's say you have, 02:30 you know, a problem in your knee. 02:31 Would you keep running races? 02:33 No. No, you would let it heal. 02:34 Yes. 02:35 Because pain tells you that something's not wrong. 02:38 Something's not right. Something's not right. 02:40 Not something's not wrong. 02:41 I need to learn to speak English 02:43 on these programs. 02:44 But anyway, so if the pain is bothering you, 02:47 and it doesn't go away, and you're mobilizing it, 02:50 that could tell you 02:51 that there's a structural problem 02:52 with the joint. 02:54 And that could be a sign 02:55 that you need to see a specialist. 02:57 And when you go, 02:58 they'll do some examining on you. 03:00 Sometimes they can figure it out with 03:01 which is examining the joint 03:03 to see if there's cartilage problem with that. 03:04 Right. 03:06 Usually they'll need to do an x-ray to see if the bones, 03:08 x-rays are great to see if the bones are damaged. 03:10 Right. 03:11 X-rays don't really look at the soft tissue 03:13 and the connection. 03:15 Sometimes they'll have to get more information 03:16 and they might order an MRI. 03:18 Now can an MRI see the ligaments 03:20 and the tendons and all that? 03:21 Yeah, it can see a lots of stuff. 03:23 Okay. 03:24 And if you get used to looking at them, 03:25 you can tell what's normal and what's abnormal. 03:28 Sometimes in a need, 03:29 they might have to do a procedure 03:31 called an arthroscopy, 03:34 where that's actually they can go inside 03:35 and see what's going on in the joint. 03:38 And if you get you can see 03:39 whether things are where they should be, 03:41 if there's a tear, 03:42 if there's a break of all these different causes. 03:44 So the two most common causes are trauma and overuse. 03:50 Trauma, you know, 03:52 I had some traumatic thing one time to my shoulder, 03:54 and I had what they call a SLAP tear. 03:56 Actually I had a tear in one of my ligaments. 03:59 And what happened was, 04:01 I was trying to fix my car, okay, 04:03 and I was trying to lift it up one day. 04:05 And I wasn't strong enough to lift up the car 04:06 and it tore my shoulder. 04:08 Okay. 04:09 So I went to an orthopedic doctor 04:11 because it didn't go away. 04:12 It kept bothering me. 04:13 In fact I couldn't sleep well at night. 04:15 And that's one problem 04:16 if your joints keeping you from sleeping. 04:17 that's a pretty significant problem. 04:19 Yeah. 04:20 If a joint swelling and it won't go away, 04:21 that's a significant problem. 04:23 If you're having a fever with a joint, 04:25 that's a very significant problem. 04:28 So anyway I figured out, you know, 04:29 this is not the way I want to go. 04:31 So I went and saw the orthopedic, 04:33 and of course he did his testing and he says, 04:35 "you have two options," okay, 04:37 "you can either do surgery on it" okay, 04:40 "or you can do, learn these exercises 04:42 which will help it heal." 04:43 Some physical therapy. Right. 04:45 So I went to the physical therapy, 04:46 did my exercise faithfully and guess what, 04:48 my shoulder healed up on its own. 04:50 Yeah, that's great. So it really worked well. 04:52 What are some other, 04:54 there's other causes besides trauma 04:55 and overuse on our joints. 04:57 Okay. 04:58 Sometimes we can have the tendons, 05:00 the tendons get inflamed. 05:01 We call that tendonitis. 05:04 That could be overused usually things of that. 05:06 Sometimes we can get the bursa, these are sacks of fluid. 05:09 Sometimes those could be at play, 05:11 we call that bursitis, okay. 05:14 There's also things like we can have different diseases, 05:17 disease states that can affect the joints. 05:20 And this is usually the disease states 05:21 where the body attacks itself. 05:24 We call that autoimmune diseases. 05:26 The most common one 05:28 is probably rheumatoid arthritis. 05:30 The body attacks itself. 05:31 But other conditions 05:33 where the body can attack the different joints, 05:34 things like lupus, the body can attack. 05:37 There's another condition called scleroderma. 05:40 One called polyarteritis nodosa. 05:44 Sometimes even infections can cause damage to the joints. 05:49 Sometimes we get infections from a tick. 05:52 You know, Lyme disease and that can hurt our joints. 05:55 Other different joints can be infected by infections as well. 05:59 That's probably the most serious acute cause 06:02 of joint pain. 06:03 So if you're having joint pain 06:05 that didn't have trauma and overuse, 06:07 and you've never had a chronic disease, 06:09 that's something you need to get evaluated 06:10 to make sure you don't have an infection. 06:13 That's a very serious cause of joint pain. 06:16 Sometimes you can have, 06:17 we've talked before about metabolism being off 06:20 and sometimes if your metabolism is off, 06:22 you can make extra stones or crystals. 06:24 Okay. Okay. 06:26 Everyone's heard of GALT. 06:27 GALT sometimes make extra crystals, 06:29 they can get deposited in joints 06:31 and cause pain as well. 06:33 Certain medications can cause joint problems, 06:36 as side effects. 06:38 Chemotherapeutic agents are very common, penicillin, 06:41 certain other agents like chemotherapy 06:45 that can also cause it. 06:46 Right. 06:47 So when, so we want to know, 06:49 you know, these are some general terms. 06:50 When a person comes in with a joint pain, 06:53 one of the first thing the doctor wants to know, 06:55 is this something that's happened overtime 06:57 or have you, it's something that's happened right away. 06:59 Right. 07:01 So he thinks about that he says, well, 07:02 if it happened right away, 07:03 then he's going to go through is it trauma, is it overuse? 07:07 Could it be an infection? 07:09 Could it be one of these rheumatologic diseases? 07:12 What's gonna happen? Right. 07:14 Or then he might say, well, if it didn't happen 07:16 suddenly like that 07:17 if it's happened slowly overtime, 07:20 chronic causes. 07:21 And one of the most common causes 07:23 of chronic joint pain is just guess what, we get old. 07:27 You're right, right. 07:28 And when we get old, things wear out. 07:31 The cartilage wears out, the ligaments wear out, 07:33 things get wear out. 07:35 They don't work as good. 07:36 That's why it's so important for our joints 07:39 to keep that from happening by using our joints 07:41 when we're young appropriately. 07:43 Okay. 07:44 You know, prevent joint problems 07:46 you know, that's why stretching, and exercise, 07:48 and good nutrition, and water, 07:51 and not doing crazy things is important. 07:54 Now crazy things... Yeah. 07:55 Let's qualify for that minute. What are we talking about? 07:58 Well, you know, 07:59 sometimes the brain is younger than the body. 08:02 Okay. Okay. 08:04 I had a 94 year old fellow come in, 08:06 his brain was 64, okay. 08:08 Good for him, right. And his joints though were 94. 08:11 And he decided, he could get up on his, 08:14 is his house and clean the leaves in the gutter. 08:16 His brain said he could do that. 08:18 Probably not a good point in your life to be doing that. 08:20 So he went up and did that and guess what happened? 08:23 He fell off the ladder and broke his pelvis. 08:25 Oh, that's bad. Okay, he almost died from that. 08:27 Wow. Okay. 08:28 So I will say that that is a crazy thing to do. 08:32 There are some risk takers, 08:33 younger people that do all sorts of things. 08:35 They jump off cliffs and parachutes 08:37 and they live for the thrill. 08:39 Sure. Okay. 08:40 Well, sometimes that can put strain on the joints 08:43 quite a bit. 08:44 Sometimes you can have damages and injuries. 08:46 If you look at the football players, 08:48 their joints what they go through. 08:49 Yeah. 08:51 Sometimes there is this common sense says, 08:52 our joints aren't made to do that. 08:53 And if we, if we abuse them at a younger age, 08:58 when we get older they wear out quicker. 09:00 We really experience those consequences really, 09:02 really badly in our old age. 09:04 Your joints get better mileage if you go at 40 instead of 80. 09:07 Yeah. 09:09 And just common things that wear out joints 09:10 is besides overuse and doing crazy things, 09:12 as not drinking enough water, not getting good nutrition. 09:16 These are the basics of joint care. 09:19 But so chronic it might, 09:20 the most common is it just wears out overtime. 09:23 The cartilage wears out, these things get old, 09:25 but other diseases that can do that. 09:28 Arthritis is probably the most common. 09:30 Arthritis over long periods of time, 09:32 either rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis. 09:36 Osteoarthritis is just the body wearing out basically. 09:39 Rheumatoid is where the body attacks the joints. 09:42 And those are the things 09:43 that happen over long periods of time 09:46 and it's very, very serious. 09:48 Now so if you have a joint problem 09:50 and it doesn't go away, how does a doctor evaluate it? 09:53 You know, what are the specific things he does? 09:56 Well, we talked about the MRI. 09:58 If it's an infection, they can put a needle in it. 10:00 If there's fluid, to see what type of fluid it is. 10:02 Okay. 10:04 Sometimes things like these fancy diseases you know, 10:06 all those ones I said scleroderma, rheumatoid, lupus, 10:09 if the body's attacking itself, 10:10 usually find out that in the blood work. 10:13 Now let's talk about these infections for a minute. 10:15 If you have an infection and it's attacking a joint, 10:18 what does that look like on the physiological level, 10:20 is that the ligaments or the bones or what? 10:22 Well, usually what happens is you get an infection 10:24 in the joint space and it starts forming pus. 10:28 Okay, so just there's a fluid that fills the joint 10:30 that shouldn't be there. 10:31 Pass your infection 10:32 and whenever an infection goes somewhere, 10:34 it starts to get big and you know, 10:35 it starts to grow. 10:36 Well. 10:38 And everyone says, hey, let's come and join me here. 10:39 And one becomes two, 10:40 two becomes a hundred and whatever. 10:42 And then it starts and then the body says, guess what? 10:43 There's a bacteria in a joint space 10:45 that's not supposed to be there. 10:47 Yeah. Okay. 10:48 And sometimes that can happen spontaneously, 10:50 sometimes it's after a procedure is done, 10:53 so when it starts happening guess what? 10:55 The body says, "Let's get the immune cells in, 10:57 let's try to treat it our self, then it gets swollen. 11:00 And guess what? 11:01 When the immune cells get there, it gets red. 11:03 You might run a fever because of this attack. 11:05 And then sometimes your body can take care of the infection, 11:08 sometimes it can't. 11:10 Right. 11:11 Well, if you, if I saw a warm joint 11:13 that had fluid in it, you having a fever 11:15 and maybe there's a reason we put a needle in it 11:17 if we needed to and we'd see if it was pussy. 11:20 So then you'd analyze that fluid and figure out 11:22 what was the best treatment from there. 11:24 Yeah. 11:25 Sometimes joints that are worn out overtime 11:27 tend to have inflammation. 11:29 Inflammation tends to have infections. 11:31 Infections and part of the body 11:32 can sometimes get a little bit out of control. 11:35 So these are some basic, 11:37 you know, principles to help people 11:39 understand our joints in general. 11:41 Right. 11:43 So you got to summarize if you have a problem, 11:44 see if you think it's due to wear and tear, okay. 11:48 If the wear and tear won't go away, 11:50 you need to see someone to see 11:51 if it's a structural problem, okay. 11:53 We see this a lot in the shoulder neck. 11:55 You know... Right. 11:56 You know, structural problems in the shoulder, 11:58 you can't even comb your hair. 11:59 Right. 12:01 That's something that needs to make sure 12:02 you didn't tear something or rip something open. 12:04 And that's when modern medicine helps the best. 12:06 Right. 12:07 Now for chronic wear and tear, 12:08 there are some just common sense things, 12:10 you know, if you're older, 12:11 you might have to admit you're older 12:13 and move around with a walker or a cane, 12:15 so you don't fall down. 12:17 If you're having extreme pain, 12:19 sometimes we can actually replace the joints. 12:22 Sometimes we need 12:24 anti-inflammatory natural remedies, 12:26 sometimes we need some medicines, 12:27 if it's severe pain 12:29 because I'd rather you have less pain 12:30 than have so much pain that you can't walk 12:32 and go to the bathroom and fall over. 12:34 So sometimes we have to admit that we're getting older. 12:37 We need a little extra help, you know, 12:39 we can't do everything that we used to do. 12:41 Right. 12:42 And just being careful and not letting your body 12:43 talk you into doing crazy thing 12:45 is one of the most useful things we can do 12:47 when it comes to that. 12:49 You mentioned joint replacements. 12:50 Would you say that's kind of the last, last effort? 12:52 Always a last resort. Last resort. 12:54 We can replace shoulders, 12:56 we can replace knees are very common, 12:58 hips are very common joint that we replace too. 13:01 Right. 13:02 Because hip fractures are very common, 13:04 because that bone gets old. 13:05 You know, something we've talked about osteoporosis 13:07 before and good bone health. 13:09 And we probably talk to that after the break a little bit 13:12 about how we can keep our bones healthy 13:14 that the joints are made off. 13:16 That's right. 13:17 But these are some just basic things 13:18 that we can do if we have pain that won't go away. 13:20 It needs to be evaluation, 13:22 these are some basic things that cause it. 13:23 But a lot of times people just 13:25 don't take good care of their joints, 13:27 they overdo it, they don't stretch, 13:29 they abuse their joints at younger ages 13:31 or when they get older, they do things that are risky 13:34 that their body can't do anymore. 13:35 Right. 13:37 Well, Dr. Marcum, thank you for the introduction. 13:38 We've got to take a short break, 13:40 but we want you to visit our website 13:41 at Heartwiseministries.org. 13:42 You can submit your health questions, 13:44 requests prayer, 13:45 and you can also find a bunch of health articles 13:47 in different resources there 13:49 to help you live more in harmony 13:50 with the way God designed us to live. 13:52 We're going to be back k on the Ultimate Prescription 13:53 so stay with us. |
Revised 2017-01-05