What is osteoarthritis?
Wear in the joints, often in the knees, hips, hands, or spine. Movement is medicine, but the dose has to fit the joint. The wrong loading flares pain. The right loading rebuilds the joint's tolerance.
In plain language.
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the wearing down of the cartilage and supporting structures in a joint. It is most common in the knees and hips, but also affects hands, shoulders, and the spine. It typically starts in middle age and progresses over decades.
Pain is not a direct map of damage. Many patients have severe OA on imaging and very little pain. Others have mild OA and significant pain. The strength of the muscles around the joint, the alignment of the leg, and the patterns of movement all change how much pain a given amount of OA produces.
How it shows up.
Common patterns:
- Stiffness in the morning that loosens within the first 30 minutes of movement
- Pain after sitting for a long stretch
- Pain with stairs, especially going down
- Pain that worsens after activity, peaks later, then settles overnight
- A gradual loss of range, the knee that no longer fully straightens, the hip that no longer rotates open
- Compensations in the back, the opposite leg, or the foot
What makes our treatment different.
Loading dosed for the joint. Most OA patients have been told to "stay active" without much guidance on what that means for a sore knee or hip. We test what your joint tolerates today and build the program around that, not around a generic protocol.
Manual therapy on the soft tissue that has tightened around the joint. Movement work to restore the patterns the body has dropped. Strength built carefully, in the ranges the joint can handle.
Coordinated with your ortho when needed. If injection or surgery comes up later, the work we do beforehand makes the recovery cleaner.
Begin with a closer look.
Book a 60-minute evaluation, or call to talk through where you are first.