Healing

Osteoarthritis (OA) it is a degenerative, "wear-and-tear" disease primarily caused by ageing, injury, or overuse that breaks down joint cartilage. OA results from mechanical stress on cartilage, leading to pain, stiffness, and inflammation.

Factors contribution to the development of OA are:

• injuries subsequent to falls and fractures or sprains, repetitive movement (RST)

• co-comorbidities such as hyper-mobility like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome

• age

• genetic predisposition

NHS UK, and most general practitioners and orthopaedic surgeons that you will have contact with, view of osteoarthritis with that is that it is a long-term, incurable condition and will offer you treatments that are about managing the symptoms such as

• pain medication, including steroid

• encourage you to exercise regular

• losing weight if you're overweight

• wearing suitable footwear

• using special devices to reduce the strain on your joints during your everyday activities, at times this will be a wheelchair

• offer you joint replacement surgery

  As someone who has run Chronic Pain Management groups for 10 years, I’d like to add that psychology and mindset, meeting others with similar issues should be added as hugely beneficial to this NHS website.

OA can be hugely debilitating for an individual, their family as well as society. It affects 32.5 million Americans. In the UK, the incident of symptomatic OA clinical diagnoses is one in 7 adults.

The symptoms can have a direct impact on one’s ability to do what they love, their independence, body perception, sleep, energy levels, sex life, identity and role with the family and community and finance.

You do not need to be one of these statistics

As a homeopath, OT and a coach, I am able to offer my clients potential of returning to full health. The best way that I can share about this with you is through this case study:

Case study 2: Osteoarthritis - getting rid off the stair lift and wheelchair, giving up the state benefits and entering

Diagnosis: Osteoarthritis and Diabetes

Annie (fictitious name to conceal their identity), aged 55 was a homeopathic student when we first started working together.

Medical History

involved in a road traffic accident in 1998 (age 28). Both knees were crushed. Damage to the neck and right shoulder also. Already had back bad leading up to it. X ray showed L3, 4 and 5 to have no disc between the vertebrae, ruptured, arthritis between the spine.

2 years later diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both knees. Annie was offered surgery for the knees, but due to her heart condition (also has a history of heart attack) the anaesthetist deemed it too risky and this was not done.

She continued to suffer greatly with pains in her back and knees since and took to using wheelchair and had a stair lift installed as ascending and descending on the stairs was particularly challenging.

She also had nerve pain (neuralgia) and was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Social History

Annie is married and has two children.

Work, function and role

She had to give up highly paid work that she enjoyed very much and which fulfilling. She received state benefits as she could no longer work. She struggled to adjust to a new role of stay at home mum and a housewife.

Meeting Annie

This has led to her overcompensating and some disempowerment of her husband and children. She was in her second year of studying homeopathy when I first met her and this brought new purpose to her life. She had a stair lift in her home as she could simply not climb the stairs during flare ups. She was also a wheelchair user.

She is a typical type A personality: driven, extremely hardworking, capable and ambitions woman. She’d get things done at all costs, and that includes her health. She would go into lengthy arguments when felt there was injustice happening towards her (so much so that she is fluent in legislation) or members of her family. She is massively protective of her family. She loves animals, particular dogs and has several.

Beneath the fighter front, we uncovered a wounded child. She told me how she was a result of an accidental pregnancy and how it was made known to her by her mother, that she was unwanted. This manifested in how she got to be parented. There was little love or attention from her mum, with exception when her mum needed something. Annie felt closer to her dad who recently passed away. She would do practical things with him like car repairs and building work in order to earn his attention, recognition and love. She had tried to adjust to a new role of stay at home mum and a housewife but tended to overcompensating for feeling less worthy which resulted in disempowering of her husband and children.

For many years she had been on a cocktail of medication.

In the process of us working together:

• We set clear goals what and why she wanted to achieve.

• We worked on healing the trauma (mother wound) - with homeopathic remedies, spiritual counselling and coaching.

• We did a lot of work around her relationship with work.

• I helped to grieve her dad’s death, establish healthy boundaries with her mother, showed her ways she could mothering herself (self compassion) and we have worked on communication, love and setting healthy boundaries with her children.

• We have worked on her financial wellbeing and current dependency on her husband’s income and state benefits.

• and subsequently her self-worth, her role in the family and dynamics in relationships.

• We worked on her creating and following an anti-inflammatory diet.

• Make time for movement.

This is Annie’s life now:

• She had the stair lift removed as no longer needs this. She no longer uses a wheelchair.

• She is able to turn up for her work reliably and is rapidly growing her homeopathic practice.

• She has healthier boundaries with her mum and no longer jumps when her mum asks her for help.

• She is beginning to show her mum how she too can support.

• She is learning to enjoy resting and leisure, not just work.

• She is no longer using her energy to resolve conflicts. In fact these have not arisen for a long time.

• In May this year, Annie gave up the Benefits and is pursuing her career as a homeopath.

Insights

Your symptoms are an expression of deeper ‘dis'-ease’. You can heal. How long does it take? In the case above we saw progress after each session.