Kick It Naturally – Arthritis and Joint Pain
You can listen to this episode HERE.
Disclaimer
T.C. Hale is not a doctor and does not claim to be a doctor, licensed in any type of medical field. Don’t be an idiot and use anything heard on this show as medical advice. This information should be used for educational purposes only and you should contact your doctor for any medical advice. Now get off me.
Kinna: Welcome to Kick it Naturally. I’m Kinna McInroe and I’m here with T.C. Hale, author, natural health expert, producer, blah, blah, blah, blah. It just goes on and on.
Tony: Power to the people!
Kinna: Yeah.
Tony: I don’t know what that means.
Kinna: When are you going to stop being things?
Tony: Being things? Oh because I have too long of a list?
Kinna: You got a long list there.
Tony: Power to the people. That’s all I got.
Kinna: He does a lot. Okay. And we’re here today and we’re also with Mr. Cutie Patootie, Will Schmidt. Hey, Will.
Tony: Hello Cutie Patootie, Will Schmidt.
Will: Hey.
Kinna: Will is sitting here with some tassels on.
Will: Awkward.
Tony: I thought that was weird. I didn’t want to say anything.
Kinna: Yeah, yeah.
Tony: Made me blush.
Kinna: It’s like the newest and the coolest with all the cool kids in Hollywood.
Will: It’s LA, everybody is doing it.
Kinna: So if this is your first time hearing us you need to pull over and immediately like us on Facebook at Kick it in the Nuts. We’re going to post topics there every single week on future shows that we’ll be doing.
Tony: On Sunday.
Kinna: On Sunday.
Tony: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.
Kinna: Sunday! You can ask questions there about whatever topic that we’re posting. And these guys will try to answer it.
Tony: Yeah. Or we’ll just make up something that’s funny. And as long as it’s funny then it’s okay if we’re wrong.
Kinna: That’s right.
Tony: That’s our policy.
Kinna: Alright. For all of our Kick It Naturally listeners Audible is offering a free audio book download with a free 30 day trial so you can check out their service. Just go to KickItInTheNuts.com/audiobook to find the link.
Tony: And that’s, that’s for all the listeners. Not even, the annoying ones get it too.
Kinna: Awesome.
Tony: That’s nice.
Kinna: So today’s topic of choice is arthritis or joint pain. And we had a lot of people who were asking questions about this. There’s a lot of people out there hurting. What’s going on?
Tony: Yeah. It’s not that fun.
Kinna: Yeah?
Tony: And of course as you age that seems to magnify for people and there’s a lot of reasons for that. And we’ll talk about some of them today. But understand that there is no, if you’re going to do quote, unquote cure for arthritis or remedy, or I’m not going to tell you some supplement to go to take to fix the problem. And the reason is because the underlying causes for arthritis and different types of arthritis and different types of joint pain is extraordinary; there’s so many. But what we’re going to do today is we’re going to talk a little bit about how looking at your own physiology can help you understand what your underlying cause will be. And we’re also going to give you some steps that you can take for yourself if you do find that your physiology is in a place where these common arthritis issues come up. So I think to, to set the stage for what we’re going to talk about today we need to establish a specific imbalance that is very common with arthritis. And we’ve talked about the anabolic and catabolic imbalance on other shows a lot because these particular imbalances can create a lot of issues. But if you’ve never heard us before I’ll have Will kinda explain this a little bit. And when we talk about looking at numbers and self tests we have a free four week course at KickItInTheNuts.com that teaches you with videos and stuff how to look at these simple tests you can run at home that can help you see oh, do I have an imbalance that seems to be going in the wrong direction and, and what can I do about it? So Will break it down. Break it down one time.
Will: So yeah. All this stuff is explained through the self test course. If you don’t remember it all go through that four week Digestive Course and you’ll be able to figure it out. But just quickly ways to know if you’re in one or the other of these imbalances. If you’re in an anabolic imbalance typically you’ll have things like a high urine pH. They’ll tend towards constipation. You might feel more sluggish and lethargic, like harder to wake up in the morning, like your brain isn’t really on most of the time. And you can be more prone towards like panic attacks and we’ll talk about why that happens.
Tony: Yeah. And you don’t need to have all of these things. These are just options that are available.
Will: Yeah. You can choose to select them. They’re available.
Tony: Yeah.
Will: And then if you’re in a more catabolic imbalance you’ll tend more towards loose stools or diarrhea. Your bile will be a little more sticky so that can make you more gassy. Your urine pH will tend to be lower. And if you get fancy and want to do that urine dip stick test you’ll see the specific gravity. If you’re catabolic it will be kinda high, like over 15. And if you’re anabolic it’ll be kinda low, like under 15.
Tony: Good. So help people if they’ve never heard before what is the difference between an anabolic/catabolic state?
Will: Sure. That was just ways to like kinda figure out which one you’re in. But what’s happening at the cellular level when you’re in an anabolic imbalance is basically the, the membranes, the walls that make up the cells are not permeable enough. They’re not letting enough stuff in like a sponge covered in wax. Like there’s not enough exchange.
Tony: I don’t have any sponges like that.
Will: Yeah. It’s weird. They don’t work at all.
Tony: Yeah. That would not be a helpful sponge at all.
Will: So it’s not letting enough stuff like oxygen into the cells from the plasma. And because of that the cells kinda freak out. And they, they’re not able to make energy the way they’re used to if they don’t get enough oxygen in this anabolic imbalance. So they still have to make energy but they end up doing it in this kinda dirty way that ends up also creating lactic acid. So that’s no fun cause that can give you a panic attack and make you sore and achy in different places.
Tony: Sure.
Will: In the catabolic state there’s, the cells are too permeable and they’re not really good at holding that which should stay in the cells in the cells. There’s too much oxidation occurring. So that can kinda make you feel more exhausted and kinda spent all of the time. And it goes along with messing up your blood sugar response. It makes you more of a slow oxidizer.
Tony: Sure. And, and both of these states, understand that they’re both appropriate, that the body uses both of these. And during the day we’re meant to be more catabolic so we can make more energy. And a lot of the tissues kinda get broken down so that they can get built back up at night when we’re in a more anabolic state. And that’s when our body rebuilds, repairs and all that stuff. So, so both states are, are correct and we need both to happen. But a lot of times people can get stuck in one state. And that’s when an imbalance can happen.
Will: Yeah. And this whole distinction came from maybe the greatest scientific, health science mind of our civilization. I don’t know…
Tony: Beeker?
Will: Yeah. Beeker from the Muppets?
Tony: He’s awesome.
Will: He’s incredible.
Tony: Yeah.
Will: He revolutionized on daytime children’s television.
Tony: Yeah.
Will: But it was a guy named Emanuel Rivici. There’s a book written about him called The Doctor Who Cures Cancer. There’s a website that’s also that same name. TheDoctorWhoCuresCancer.com. And he was the one who really helped us understand all the nuances and that this thing even existed, the anabolic/catabolic swing. And with it there’s other pieces of your body chemistry that follow this process like your cells do like your pH’s. So one thing that he found is after decades and decades of research when you get stuck in one of these states like say you’re stuck in the catabolic state and your body doesn’t switch over to being anabolic like it should at night. A lot of those people would start to have more pain at night. And so he’d call it these “pain patterns,” these “acid or alkaline pain patterns.” And vice versa, the person stuck in the anabolic imbalance would have more issues in the morning when their body didn’t or when it failed to switch into the catabolic state. So if you have more pain or less pain at different times of the day that’s something to kinda pay attention to and do your self numbers to see where you are at the moment.
Tony: Right.
Kinna: That’s really good too because my back hurts in the mornings.
Will: Yeah. That’s interesting.
Kinna: And I’m anabolic. So I guess just waking up is like…
Tony: Still in that state.
Kinna: Yeah.
Tony: So that could be a possibility. And, and so what we’re going to talk about now is how arthritis can be affected by these different imbalances. And, and usually when we’re looking at joint type pain the most common causes for these issues is seems to be either where the connective tissues are, are too broken down. And a person will end up almost like a bone on bone kinda thing just because that connective tissue is not being rebuilt and rejuvenated like it should. And the other most common issue is when calcium deposits in the joints and then they can be rubbing against the calcium deposit. Or it can cause other lock up issues and stuff like that. So those seem to be the most common underlying causes. So now we’ll talk about how these imbalances can create those situations. Maybe start with a catabolic imbalance. And maybe, let’s talk a little bit about rheumatoid arthritis too because that’s a type of arthritis. And most people usually have either have rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis. Those seem to be the most common types. So we tend, this doesn’t mean that if you have rheumatoid arthritis that you’re catabolic but we tend to see most rheumatoid arthritis cases tend to be and extremely catabolic individual.
Will: Yeah. And to kinda point why that would be the catabolic state is like one where, think of it as like your car is on. You’re oxidizing, you’re burning energy. You’re like driving down the freeway fast. So with that you get wear and tear on your joints. And you get to repair your car when you pull over and you take it to the shop for maintenance. That repair time, that’s nighttime like anabolic. Ideally your body should be repairing itself then. But if you’re always in this catabolic oxidizing, freeway kind of action your body doesn’t get the chance to really rebuild all those connective tissues so you start to have kinda systemic weakness throughout those connective tissues.
Tony: Right. So then let’s say that there’s a specific joint that you use a lot in your job or something like that you know and then it can just get worn down faster. And the body can also it can be selective as to you know what tissues it’s going to break down more. There can also be issues where if your body doesn’t have the proper level of resources that your body can mine itself where like your body is really digging into connective tissue and bones to pull out nutrients cause it needs them and you’re not giving it to them. Or maybe your digestion is not functioning well enough to pull them out. So you know both of those issues could cause a deterioration situation that could result in what would appear like rheumatoid arthritis type situations. So that’s a possibility. And so if you, if you ran and you look ah man I’m, I’m real catabolic then that could give you some indications of steps that you might want to take to try and push yourself in a more anabolic state so that your body can start rebuilding more.
Kinna: But what is the difference between rheumatoid and osteo? I mean is it different pain? Is it, I mean, what is, why does it have a different name?
Tony: It’s, to give it fanciness. And you know so…
Kinna: And to prescribe a different medication.
Tony: Right. And, and that can be the case in a lot of cases. But then again sometimes with arthritis the medical community seems to just say “well let’s just try this arthritis medication instead. But osteoarthritis it comes from like osteoporosis.
Kinna: Osteoporosis. I knew that.
Tony: Right, right. That was great. So and a lot of situations that can be where a person is not having enough resources so the body, you know when, when the body doesn’t get what it needs it finds ways to get it. And even if it has to, you’re basically eating yourself. You’re cannibalizing, you’re like lunch is basically what you are.
Kinna: Oh great.
Tony: So if either you’re not bringing in nutrients or…
Kinna: You are what you eat.
Tony: Yeah. You are. So Will, do you want to talk about how you know how digestive issues can create a lack of nutrients? I know we talk about that on a lot of issues.
Will: Yeah. When you, when your body isn’t able to break down the different proteins that it needs it can’t form it’s own proteins. I do want to touch for a second though on the question you had about rheumatoid and osteo. A lot of the times people have swelling in their joints due to like, sometimes systemic issues like we’ve talked about; the catabolic/anabolic state. But almost always there’s also a biomechanical or postural component to joint pain. So osteoarthritis means joint, we’re looking at bones and the position of joints and things. So you may have really balanced chemistry but still have a swollen knee or swollen elbow because of how your body is moving and holding itself. And the way the joint is being asked to work depending on your posture and your movement pattern.
Kinna: So the pain of arthritis or whatever it comes from your joints or your bones or both? It’s like…
Tony: Quite a variety. There’s a lot of options.
Will: Pain comes from the nerves. Like the nerves telling your brain “ow that hurts.” Whether it’s the muscles, or the bones, or the tendons, or the ligaments, or whatever it is. It’s that area that’s, that’s getting pain. And that’s sort of different. Rheumatoid where if it’s more systemic it could be more at like a specific tissue level. But when we look at like specific joints it usually all the, all the tissues involved are under stress. And think of like you’re trying to open a door that’s supposed to bend on hinges but you’re trying to twist it open. You know like push in from the top. Like the hinge joint is not designed to twist. And a lot of times things like the knee are asked to twist even though they’re a hinge joint. So all the connective tissues involved from the bones to the fascia, and the muscles and the tendons, and the ligaments all get under stress. So all of that can incur swelling. “Itis,” the “itis” means swelling. And that’s just your body trying to stop you from doing that. Like, like the swelling is trying to restrict the motion and the joints so that you don’t keep doing that.
Kinna: Alright. So the next time I hurt at the gym I’m going to say “yeah Tony my body is trying to stop me here.”
Tony: Just sit down, yeah. Right.
Will: But that’s why it can happen because of moving patterns. But also because of all the stuff that we’ve been talking about so far.
Tony: Yeah. That’s what’s interesting about arthritis and why there’s so much confusion and debate and argument is because you know nutritional issues and imbalances all these things that we’re going to kinda talk about can absolutely cause arthritis or any kind of joint pain. But at the same time posture issues can also cause more stress to a specific joint than it should. So a person can change their posture and find improvement. A person could change their body’s ability to repair or stop the problem that’s creating deterioration and they can see improvement, or they could do a combination. You know so that’s why people’s like “well I changed my posture and I feel better so that’s the answer.” But that’s not always the answer, and same with nutritional issues. I fixed this imbalance but I still have pain. But you’re walking like a hunchback. You know so there’s such a variety of underlying causes, but also things that you can do to improve those that is just gets very confusing. And that’s why it’s just important to instead of looking at what’s popular. Just look at you and try and figure out what’s going on with your body so you can make improvements.
Will: Yeah. And those. All the self tests that we do teach you where your ideal ranges should be. So the way I think is useful and most practical to go about trying to address what’s the thing that you need to do is figure out what seems way out of whack. Whether it’s your body chemistry or your posture, like your moving patterns. All those can point to like hey that stands out a lot. Let’s work on that a bit. So one thing you can do if you want to check out if your alignment is off you can go to my website MyBodyOfKnowledge.net/pain-relief, or just type in “pain relief” in the search box. And it will take you to a page that shows you what ideal posture should look like. So you can, and it talks about all these different points. You can look at your own posture and say hey, am I close to that? And if you’re not, well there’s some exercises and things and resources, pain relief videos you can find there that can help you start working on that end of it. But I also encourage you to work on the body chemistry part of it too.
Tony: Right. And if you do work on both, both aspects it can kind of speed up your relief.
Will: Totally.
Tony: And you may not have fixed the problem but it’s nice to have relief when everything that you’ve tried has, has done nothing you know a lot of the times. So if we get back to osteoarthritis a little bit in the same way that rheumatoid arthritis is very common to see with an extremely catabolic person, an extremely anabolic person it can be pretty common to see them with osteoarthritis issues. And it can be for a couple reasons like we said. Either the, the person not having resources so the body’s digging into the bones. And a lot of times it’s looking for phosphorus. But when it pulls out phosphorus or other nutrients calcium will often follow with that. And a lot of these joint issues have to do with calcium being in the wrong place and then depositing in joints. So one thing is if the body’s not mining itself, an extremely anabolic state often has excess calcium floating around in the blood stream. So when it falls out it can deposit into joints and then you start to get like the deposits of build up of calcium in the wrong place that can create pains by rubbing against tendons, connective tissue, all, all kinds of problems can happen. It can also lock up joints so they don’t move well. So a very common thing that we see it creates this excess calcium floating around is your favorite thing of eating too much sugar and too many carbohydrates because…
Kinna: He’s looking right at me.
Tony: Yeah. Well I’m talking right to you.
Kinna: Well I know.
Tony: I know but you get very upset every time we find another thing that was caused by sugar.
Kinna: Sugar gets all the bad rap.
Tony: It’s a sad day.
Will: Vitamin D too on that one.
Tony: Yeah, yeah. So vitamin D is, is just as guilty as sugar in this situation.
Kinna: Oh, okay.
Will: So stay out of the sun too, Kinna.
Tony: Right.
Will: Stay inside and don’t eat sugar.
Tony: But it’s all these things that make calcium excited and jump out into the bloodstream. And then there’s too much calcium in the blood stream. So when it deposits, you know falls out of the blood stream this is the most common issue that comes from that.
Kinna: It’d be cool though if your body was mining for something and it found gold.
Tony: Yeah. That’d be great.
Will: It would be cool.
Kinna: That would be awesome.
Will: And that sort of arthritic cause would normally be something more like when you see people that tend to be older and their hands are really like hard to kinda move.
Kinna: Yeah.
Will: Where that might, there’s sometimes postural related issues to like the agility of your hands but that’s more sorta like the calcification of the joints.
Kinna: Yeah. And people get like deformed after a while.
Will: It can, yeah.
Tony: Sure. And that and actually both arthritis can create that just because of the deterioration of bones, joints, and all the sudden things can’t move as well too. So that’s, that’s why there’s more confusion is like hey, my hand looks like a Spock hand and I can’t move it, but so does this guy. And their arthritises, arthritisees? Their forms or arthritis are completely different. And the causes of them are completely different. But the symptom is so similar that it seems like we’re just looking for an answer to that symptom.
Kinna: And once you’ve gotten to that point is there any reversing? I mean you can, you can’t make your hands go back.
Tony: There really is and it’s because the body is made to do some crazy stuff if you put it into a state that it can. And not that it’s going to happen over night but I’ve just seen so many people with severe issues that have gotten better. And I mean what about you know your hip is a perfect example of someone who had pain constantly from your hip.
Kinna: Yeah. Oh yeah. And now it’s you know, it’s much better. You know definitely I rarely get pains in my hips
Tony: Right. And that’s something that you know doctors have a hard time telling you what to do or giving a solution. But when you, you know got in and dealt with your specific situation.
Kinna: Sugar.
Tony: And lots o lots of sugar and carbs and food that was undigested. And you know all those things all the sudden you know maybe six months later it’s gone.
Kinna: So one of the biggest things for people who have arthritis is to deal with the inflammation of it, right? Cause that’s what causes the pain so…
Tony: It’s a, it’s a big deal. And there’s so many different causes. But if you start giving the body what it needs and help it get balanced out then over months. Then improvement seems to be gradual and oh wow, I remember when it used to hurt when I brushed my teeth like that.
Will: Yeah. It also is just the way you phrase that too makes me want to point out what it is. What arthritis is like when you said “well people if they have arthritis if they deal with this, if they deal with the swelling, that’s the important thing.” Like arthritis, “itis” means swelling.
Kinna: Swelling. So that’s the whole thing.
Will: So yeah people that deal with swelling if they deal with swelling that’s what they’re treating the swelling with. So like when you go into the doctor, like I had patella tendonitis that was supposedly permanently disabling my knee to some degree. And I got all this…
Kinna: And his knees are beautiful now, people.
Will: And really functional. Yeah. I like my knees a lot. So that was patella tendonitis; that means the front of my knee swelling in the tendon. That’s what that part means. Whenever a doctor gives you a diagnosis like look and see what are those words saying? Cause usually it’s what you came in the office saying to them.
Kinna: But it’s a big Latin fancy word.
Will: Yeah. Right. So don’t just think oh well it hurt because I have, I have arthritis. Like no, it’s just I have a swelling joint. Well why do you have a swelling joint? You know and if you will push that train to figure out the causes of that it’s going to take you further than a prescription med.
Tony: Right. And again we’re, we’re just talking about the most common causes. The underlying causes that can cause any type of tissue to swell or have issues is, is extraordinary here. So we know we’re not going to cover all those. But we’ll get into some questions and we’ll talk more about this stuff.
Kinna: I’m going to start saying I have carbitis. Swelling from carbs.
Tony: That’s good, that’s good.
Kinna: Seely from Manila, Philippines, “I’m 36 and have some lingering joint pain in my right knee due to injury. My mom whose 60 keeps trying to get me to take her joint supplements. Is it okay?”
Tony: No. Don’t take your mom’s things. Next question.
Kinna: Alright.
Tony: Um no. I think joint supplements are a huge topic. And this is a big issue because here’s, here’s what we’ve found is that the most common things used in joint supplements are MSM and glucosamine chondroitin. So what we know is that MSM is a very strong pro-catabolic mineral. It’s like a sulfur. So if someone’s arthritic issue is from being overly anabolic and all the issues that come with that MSM can change their life. It can be like this miracle situation.
Kinna: I used to be on that. Why am I not anymore?
Tony: Yeah. We used MSM with you when you were overly and, and that helped us speed up the process of improving your hip issue. But glucosamine chondroitin is very pro-anabolic. So that makes sense to why it would help somebody with arthritic issues if those arthritic issues were from an overly catabolic situation. So they do all these studies where this supplement helped this amount of people with arthritis and helped this amount of people. So they’re like “oh well they’re both great let’s just put them together and, and that’s going to be a magical joint supplement.” So now you’re pushing a person more anabolic at the same time you’re pushing them more catabolic. So it’s like driving with your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. And so you can see that there’s a, a lot of people will use either some kind of combination of both of these things which is completely worthless and giving them almost no value. Or the MSM helped their Aunt Marge, can I say Marge?
Kinna: Yeah.
Tony: Aunt Marge. Nobody’s offended?
Will: No.
Tony: No one has an Aunt Marge? Okay so if it helped their Aunt Marge then they’re like “oh well I’ll use that.” But this person is overly catabolic they’re going to make themselves so much worse. And they’re gonna wanna punch Marge in the face.
Kinna: We’re all snowflakes. You got really passionate over that question.
Tony: I did.
Kinna: I’ve never seen you that passionate.
Will: He hates his Aunt Marge.
Tony: Well, yeah. But Aunt Marge really makes me mad. But, but that’s, that’s a big problem with arthritis is that people are trying to self medicate through symptoms and, and that’s when you can cause a lot of problems.
Kinna: When you should self medicate through alcohol.
Tony: Right.
Will: Or other drugs.
Tony: But if you know where your chemistry is now you have somewhere to start from. If you do see oh I’m super catabolic then you could take some supplements that would help improve that.
Kinna: I really want my sister to look at her chemistry because she has rheumatoid arthritis and I think that you know some supplements can help her. She’s on I forget what it’s called but some you know prescription that I’m sure is messing up her liver.
Tony: So it’s good to look at, see what’s up to know where do I start.
Will: Yeah. And a little more for Seely, did we say it was?
Kinna: Seely.
Will: If you had a specific injury to a joint that still hurts in that same spot where you hurt it, it’s really important that you correct the body alignment to that place cause for sure you created a limp pattern from that if you didn’t do any work to try to fix that. And like even if you have really great chemistry if your alignment is still off it’s just not going to get better. You gotta, you gotta work on fixing that. So check out the pain relief videos and stuff on my site.
Tony: Right. Cause in the same way nutritional issues can cause all these problems so can misuse of something that’s fine.
Will: Yeah.
Kinna: Cool. Madeline from Toluca, California, “Any link between processed sugar and arthritis? Mine seems to get worse when I’ve been eating a lot of sugar.” Shut up, Madeline!
Tony: Yeah, yeah we’ll let Kinna answer that question.
Kinna: No! There is nothing that is linked between the two!
Tony: Now go have a doughnut!
Kinna: Yeah.
Tony: Yeah. So we’ve talked about that a lot so we won’t go into that a lot. But that, that’s a big deal and calcium needs to be in the right place. And of course we know a lot of sugar will jack that up.
Will: Yeah.
Kinna: Melanie, “what about tendonitis in the knees?” What about it?
Will: Yeah, same, same sort of swelling issues can occur for all the different biochemistries we just talked about as well as postural issues. Like and really if is a very specific place in your body like it just hurts in that one spot and everything else feels kind of supple and okay, you got to look at your biomechanics. You know it’s, it’s most likely like that’s the primary cause of why your tendon and your knee would be swollen.
Kinna: And do, like does things like they always say your muscles have memory. Do, do the, the injuries have a memory?
Will: Absolutely. Yeah. You can get an injury because of like poor biomechanics like maybe you walk sort of funny cause you carried a your backpack on one shoulder, something like that and it caused the pain. And then you know initially. Or you could have like me gotten tackled in football and hurt your knee in a specific moment. And then that created a new movement pattern that then perpetuated the pain in the area.
Tony: Did you at least win that game?
Will: No. It was practice. It wasn’t even a freakin game.
Kinna: Well one of the things I found out with my back was I was always sitting with my leg up underneath me watching TV. And so that was like messing big time with my alignment. And I was like wow okay when he told me that. And now I’m conscious every time I’m sitting.
Will: Yeah.
Kinna: Don’t be sitting on my leg.
Will: Yeah. And just to take a moment, I learned this really fabulous method of posture correction from a company, from a guy named Pete Egoscue. And he was this really great method called the Egoscue method. You can find it at Egoscue.com. E-G-O-S-C-U-E.com. And he has a book called Pain Relief. If you’re, if you’re thinking you want to look more deeply into the posture stuff. That’s a great, I’m not going to talk much more about it, cause I already keep coming back to it and I want to focus on chemistry.
Kinna: But he’s really good. So if you get a chance you check out his body of knowledge.
Will: Yeah. And, and Pain Free by Pete Egoscue is a great book where you can really figure out how your body is supposed to work with the biomechanics.
Kinna: Cool. Alright. Will from Halifax, West Yorkshire, “RSI has destroyed my wrists; ganglions have developed.” I think that’s how you say it. Ganglions, ganglions?
Tony: That’s how, that’s how I want to say it.
Kinna: Yeah. Or gang-lions.
Tony: And, and RSI is a Repetitive Strain Injury and that can be a lot of kinda what we’ve been talking about a lot. And it seems to be. It seems to affect more of the you know tendons and soft body tissue stuff. So you know again, a lot of times if it is connective tissue issues I really want to see is that person overly catabolic? Because that, if someone’s stuck in a state where the body is always breaking down and not rebuilding those connective tissues is often one of the first things the body will break down too much.
Kinna: Alright. Vincent from Albuquerque, New Mexico, “growing old is not for sissies.” No, growing old sucks.
Tony: Amen, Vincent. Way to go.
Kinna: Yeah.
Tony: Good stuff.
Kinna: Thanks for weighing in, Vincent.
Will: Have you, have you guys ever heard Louis C.K.’s bit where he’s like, he got a sprained ankle and he went into the doctor? He’s like “once you pass 40 they just don’t try to fix you anymore.” He’s like, “oh you’ve just got, your ankles just worn out. You’ve got shitty ankle now.” But it’s not true.
Kinna: That’s so true.
Will: Like I used to have really bad joint pain when I was 23. Now I’m 33 and nothing hurts at all. So don’t just think that just cause you’re getting older that this joint pain is like unavoidable.
Tony: You’re done.
Will: Think about like say you have a hip that hurts; say you’re like 65 and you have a hip that hurts. And it’s just cause I’m old, well it’s like aren’t both of your hips the same age, you know?
Tony: Right.
Will: Think about that. There’s maybe more than just being 65.
Kinna: But why do a lot of old people fall down and break their hip? What’s that about?
Tony: As we age we tend to move more into that catabolic state where, and especially if, if someone has osteoporosis type issues where the body’s been mining itself for decades. It becomes very fragile and when they fall down hey, hey that just broke. That’s a big deal.
Kinna: So as I get older I’ll be able to eat butter.
Tony: Right. You’ll want to get some butter going.
Kinna: Alright.
Will: It’s also if you think about like the imbalance perpetuated over time gets further into that imbalance. So if you’re not practicing like keeping things well ordered and balanced then even just a little bit off you add more and more time, you get further and further off.
Kinna: That was my question earlier too that I forgot was is it accumulation? Is that why it seems to happen to older people because it’s an accumulation of a lifestyle or…
Will: Yeah. And I would think the same is true I mean, you know some degree of just age degeneration that does happen.
Kinna: It’s gonna happen.
Will: But if you’re practicing these things of keeping your body chemistry balanced and your alignment good you’re going to stay much more fortified and stable than otherwise.
Tony: And we’ll do an osteoporosis pod cast soon and get into that in a little more depth.
Kinna: Maybe we can get Sally Field to come on.
Tony: I think she’ll, she’ll be here for sure.
Kinna: Cool. Alright Jeff from Boyertown, Pennsylvania, “I have arthritis in my left knee. Is it possible to get it in the elbows also?” I would say yes, but that’s just me.
Tony: Why do you, why do you want it in the elbows? Why are you targeting a specific area?
Kinna: I mean is he wanting it there?
Tony: That seems weird to me.
Kinna: I want it everywhere!
Tony: No but yeah. If you understand that you know the different causes that can happen then it just. When you have arthritis in a specific area that just happens to be the area where whatever went wrong happened to go wrong. But it can certainly go wrong in other places too. So the idea is to, to make it go right.
Will: Yeah.
Kinna: Amber from Claire, Michigan, I said it right this time instead of “Whichigan,” everybody.
Tony: That’s right!
Kinna: “After lifting my elbow area hurts, the inner arm and my ankles hurt when I run. So please tell me how to fix this. Or can Will just come be a masseuse?”
Will: Aww, you know what Amber I already got you covered just like two days ago I posted on tennis elbow; a video, a pain relief video on that. So check out my Facebook there. Under My Body of Knowledge on Facebook there’s an alignment video on correcting tennis elbow which is actually the lateral epicondyle, the outside of the elbow but the inner arm is also intimately connected to the same exercise we would use to fix it. So I don’t have to come massage you, Amber. But maybe we can do it on a separate occasion.
Tony: But if you had asked a week earlier he would have had to come and show off.
Kinna: It’s okay Amber because I’m getting a massage right now. I’m kidding. Lisa from Richmond, Virginia, “I recently was diagnosed with…” okay here’s this word that we could not figure out. “Pes Anserine Bursitis.”
Tony: It’s a type of bursitis.
Kinna: Yeah. Some type of bursitis; “in both knees and a possible torn meniscus in the left. How will I know when it’s okay to resume normal activity? How about the couch to 5K training that started it in the first place?” There’s your first problem; don’t ever train.
Tony: For a 5K?
Kinna: Or just train.
Tony: Oh. At all, yeah.
Kinna: For anything.
Tony: Well look at and, and to the person that this happens to they view it as well exercising caused this problem so I should not exercise. But you want to look at it as that your body was already set up in a situation where it’s not going to handle that type of movement. And other issues are going to make that, cause you’ve been having movement for a long time, your whole life pretty much. So there’s some type of underlying cause that would have created that issue not just the exercise.
Will: Yeah, right. It’s kinda like when you’re not going to really feel like the lack of your functionality until you try to perform that function.
Tony: Right.
Will: It’s kinda like with when people can’t digest protein they just go vegan or something like that.
Tony: Right, right.
Will: So they avoid their digestive problem. When people’s body’s alignments are out of position usually women have and issue of hyperextension in their knees. They’re fine if they just sit on a couch but if you ask them to go do something hard like run, or like Amber with her ankles trying to run there. Like you’ve got to have good mechanics or else you’re just going to be really jacking up the joints with each impact. Running can be awesome for you even on concrete like it’s one, like running and weight lifting can re-enforce the strength of the bones and make you have like a lot of resistance to osteoporosis over time. But if your alignment is off it’s going to wear down certain connective tissues like the meniscus and the tendons way faster and you’re not going to be able to sustain it. So you got to look at your body alignment. There’s a video I made for Yoga for Runners. And also another video Yoga for Knee Pain. So you can check out those to help out with that. But I would try to do that and then see if you can get back to running after you correct your alignment. If you do have a torn meniscus though it can be a pretty great surgery to like have it like fixed. Like if it’s stuck and flapped over and torn it’s not really going to fix itself. So they can sometimes cut out just a piece of it and that sort of pain goes away. But you still need to correct the alignment or else you’re going to keep causing damage to the joint.
Tony: So it’s a perfect example of how, how could anyone ever know what really caused Lisa’s issue because if you know connective tissue was already overly fragile, or broken down, or calcium deposits were already in the wrong place then even if her body mechanics were correct it still could have caused an issue. But also maybe all those tissues and everything were okay but the body mechanics were off and that created another issue. So the variety is just really, really great.
Kinna: Revinethran, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia…
Tony: What, what, what were their name?
Kinna: I’m just guessing.
All: Ravinethran.
Will: I like that.
Kinna: I feel like I’m like reading like in a beauty pageant.
Will: Sounds like a, I don’t want to say it.
Tony: Well I mean to us. That’s probably like the most common name wherever he lives.
Kinna: It’s probably like “John.”
Will: It’s Ravinethran.
Tony: It sounds like they made something up and it worked. Like it sounded cool.
Will: Yeah.
Kinna: “Arthritis is the inflammation of the joint due to our immune system. Our immune system gets confused and starts to attack certain parts of our joints.” Is this true?
Will: I hate that story.
Tony: I hate it too.
Will: I love your name.
Tony: It’s very common.
Will: Love your name; hate that story.
Tony: Yeah. And it’s a very common belief and it’s, it’s a view point of what’s going on. It’s kinda in my opinion it’s a very wrong view point.
Will: Yeah. I, the whole story of all autoimmune diseases just makes me mad. The body, I, I just refuse maybe it’s a religious thing I don’t know. I refuse to believe the body it that stupid to start attacking it’s own tissues for no reason.
Tony: Right.
Will: There’s a really good book called Stealth Pathogens which talks about like why the immune system might be going after it’s own cells if it detects something off. And I think that’s a much better explanation. At least I like to believe that a lot better because I think the body is smarter than that. But I, I would much rather someone think oh it’s you know there’s a particular cause that I can work on in my nutrition or in my joint mechanics to fix this rather than thinking my body is stupid.
Tony: Right. Cause that’s hard to fix.
Will: Right.
Tony: That’s hard to fix.
Kinna: But at the same time I mean people are born with like deformities or things that don’t function on their bodies. Everybody’s different so maybe somebody was born with a bad immune system.
Will: Well yeah. I believe that a lot of like…
Tony: There probably is a guy.
Will: Yeah.
Tony: There’s probably a guy; his name is Earl. And he has a, has a bad immune system.
Will: Maybe a lot of inbreeding.
Tony: But you know, yeah. We, we’ve talked a lot about immunity on our common cold show. And we talked even on our…
Kinna: I have immunity with the courts right now. That’s a different subject.
Tony: Okay. But in the Food Sensitivities pod cast that we did, and if you want to hear any of our old ones if you’re listening to us on the Terry James Alive network you can hear our previous shows on either iTunes or Stitcher. Just go to either of those and search for Kick It Naturally. But we have a, a food sensitivities pod cast and we kind of explain that a lot of those people are not having autoimmune responses to foods or whatever. They’re having appropriate immune responses because this food is getting into the bloodstream undigested and causing issues. And that’s kinda how we view especially like osteoporosis. And we’re not saying that this is correct or that is the absolute truth it’s just a different view than what is held in the medical community. And a lot of the medical community views osteoporosis as the body is confused and decided to just attack bones.
Will: Right.
Tony: And we just don’t hold that opinion.
Will: Yeah. And I guess I get particularly pissed off about it because that’s what a doctor told me about my eczema, that is was my immune system overreacting to some weird toxin that it was maybe exposed to for a minute and I just needed to take a steroid cream to turn off my blood cells cause they were doing something dumb.
Tony: Any why do you let them do dumb stuff?
Will: Right.
Tony: Can’t you, can’t you straighten that out. So you know Raventhram, Ravinethran…
Kinna: Ravinethran is probably not listening anymore.
Tony: Right. He’s not. But the thing is, is he’s correct of you’re going to use the mainstream information. This is the viewpoint that is held is that a lot of times they body’s just attacking itself. But we see that when there are issues that seem like the body is attacking itself that there’s something else going on. It’s not that it’s attacking itself it’s usually a case of look I’m not, I’m not getting the nutrients I need so I’m going to pull them out of myself because I have to continue to function.
Kinna: Alright, Ravinethran. Might want to question your whole…
Will: Existence.
Tony: No, no. And he shares the same viewpoint that most people share. And that’s okay. They’re here to hear something different. Something…
Kinna: The right view.
Tony: No, no. That’s not what I’m saying. But yeah, you’re right.
Kinna: David from Bradford, UK, “I’m 25 and a hemophiliac. I have osteoarthritis to my ankle caused by hemophiliac atrophy. I had an arthroscopy five weeks ago but it didn’t work. My ankle will need fusing at some point. I hate arthritis.”
Tony: He’s right to hate arthritis. He did get that correct cause that sounds like a nightmare situation that he’s dealing with. And at 25 so he really proves that thing of it’s not an age thing. It’s a, it’s a body thing.
Will: Yeah. I mean…
Kinna: It’s your immune system attacking your bone.
Tony: Your immune system hates your ankle.
Will: You need more steroid creams. No, not to make light of this but I would look at like you know whatever they’re saying is behind this hemophiliac condition could be a lot of different problems going on. And one I just had a conversation with a client the other day about her being anemic and when we look at like why, why wouldn’t the body be able to make enough blood and make the cells that it needs to make. And she was told like “oh just take more iron,” cause he iron levels were low. Well iron is a key component of hemoglobin which is one of the blood proteins. But then there’s the rest of hemoglobin too. And you might have plenty of iron in your, in your diet. But if you don’t have the ability to really make enough of your own protein, you’re not going to be able to make a ton of your own blood. So when we look at this condition we’ll be like what if anything we can do to help you Bradford is look at how is your digestion working? Are you able to break down your foods well and get the nutrients you need to make your own blood and restore your own tissues? And that’s where I would start from like the holistic view of like how can you get more blood cells going?
Tony: Right. And another thing is just because you have one issue with the hemophiliac issue does not mean that that is the cause to the other issue because that’s not always the case. You know your ankle issue could be caused just from being overly catabolic. And it could be for a totally different reason, who knows. But there may be another reason that either the body is having a hard time rebuilding tissue or it’s breaking down too much. So just look at your chemistry and see if something jumps out at you like whoa that, that kinda makes sense for what’s going on with me.
Will: And it, you know it may not be it might be some weird genetic thing that’s happened to you but I think it’s a much more useful and empowering stance to see like what can I do to improve the situation.
Tony: Right.
Will: Let me fix my digestion, let me balance my chemistry as best I can and see where you can get with it.
Tony: Right. Instead of just looking at the symptom I’m dealing with and feeling hopeless about it.
Kinna: Stephanie from Crystal City, Missouri, “why does it hurt so damn bad when it rains? Why do we even get it?”
Tony: Well we get rain because the moisture in the…no that’s not, I’m not accurate? Well maybe you know when we talked about the anabolic state rain changes the pressure in the air. Do you want to talk about that, Will?
Will: Yeah. Leave me the fancy physics stuff. But I know like the atmospheric pressure does like, can create more pressure on the individual. But you also, there’s all sorts of different factors that can push you to be more anabolic or catabolic like the temperature. Like if it’s too hot or too cold it can push you one way or the other. Right after you eat your blood pH also. There’s all sorts of things that Revici talks about in his super fancy, really confusing text book.
Kinna: That Revici knows a lot.
Will: But there’s lots of influences that drive you to be more catabolic or more anabolic. So you can look at the weather, the temperature, when you just ate, the amount of sleep you had, where your pH’s are at. And look at where can you make shifts in your body chemistry to keep yourself as close to those points of balance that you want to be. And then notice how those environmental influences affect your chemistry. Like oh, did it push your urine pH up more? Are you more anabolic at the moment? If so take steps like maybe MSM or ascorbic acid.
Tony: Right, right.
Will: Push yourself back into balance.
Tony: Yeah. Cause just because the change in pressure can push a person more anabolic doesn’t mean you have to have pain all the time when it rains if you can move your chemistry to a less anabolic starting point.
Will: Yeah. It’s a lot like someone whose like electrolyte deficient in the heat. Like oh you’ve got to take a little more steps to keep your electrolyte levels up like more salts, more frequent meals whatever it is. So you’re not the only one that has to deal with environmental factors to keep your body chemistry in balance. There’s, there’s lots of different issues that can come from changing tides and such.
Kinna: Stephanie, move to the desert. Sue, “I’ve had it 30 years; can’t walk and my fingers are deformed. Nodules in my elbows, toes deformed, nodules in my lungs. I can tell two days before it rains, I get a bad flare up and in bed for days. I wish there was a cure. The only time it didn’t bother me was when I was pregnant then four months after it came back.” Stay pregnant is what I got to say.
Tony: Good advice. It’s solid, it’s solid advice.
Will: Also like draws me back to one of Revici’s, this is what led Revici initially to the whole pathway of discovering the whole anabolic/catabolic imbalance was seeing how someone’s cancer went into remission when she got pregnant, like how her chemistry had shifted. And he thought at first had to do mostly with how the pH’s shifted in that experience of her physiology. And so he started playing with pH’s for a long time and then realized it was at this deeper level of the cell membrane where we talk about the catabolic cell being too permeable, the anabolic cell not permeable enough. But whatever that was in your chemistry that happened while you were pregnant helped push you in the right direction.
Tony: Right.
Will: So that should give you a lot of hope.
Tony: That’s exciting to see that okay I know that my symptoms changed when I was in a state where body chemistry commonly changes drastically. So if you just see where you are and have the ability to move it you could do that without being pregnant.
Will: Yeah. And this is really empowering to people with joint pain like back pain, knee pain, or whatever it is. When they get an x-ray or and MRI done and the doctor says like oh I have these like herniated disks. Or I have this like you know swelling in this, in this tendon or whatever; they’re walking in and saying like oh my body is broken. I have this damaged anatomy. And then if you can point out to them is there any time in the day when it doesn’t hurt? You know like, oh well when I’m walking my back doesn’t hurt. Or you know what it, and then all the sudden like oh well does your back not have herniated disks when you’re walking?
Tony: Right, right.
Will: So no, it’s just something changed. The position of the spine or like where the joints are, or your chemistry at the moment. And that’s awesome because then it leads you to that discovery of like you’re not broken. There’s just something that needs to shift around whether it’s your chemistry or your alignment.
Tony: That’s good, that’s good. We’ll keep you around.
Will: Yeah. I try.
Kinna: Exactly. Kelly “my husband is a meat cutter and he is to the place where he can’t make a fist or totally straighten his finger. What vitamins or supplements can help with the pain and is this condition reversible with the right supplementation?”
Tony: Yeah. You know I, I, you see so many people find relief when they start working with their body instead of against it. So again don’t, don’t look for the right supplementation for the issue, look at what would be right for your husband. And look at what imbalances he may be dealing with and if you can straighten those out if improvement comes with it then you know you did some good stuff.
Will: Yeah. And do especially look at your joint mechanics on this one as well. A lot of people with work place injuries whether it’s carpel tunnel syndrome or like a butcher that’s always like bent over, hunched over with their shoulders. That changes the whole weird kinetic chain and how the muscles and joints move and work together. And I’ve seen miracles happen when you fix that persons posture of how all the sudden they have like freedom of movement of their joints again including their hands.
Kinna: Your private jet is here, Will.
Tony: Yeah.
Kinna: So don’t worry, Kelly he’ll be back to beating his meat before you know it. Ah, Marsha from Denver, Colorado, “if you stop drinking alcohol, coffee, and eating sugar and a few foods your arthritis will disappear. I know, I know. Just saying.” Is this true, guys?
Tony: You know here’s what I say about what Marsha says. You know there’s so many underlying causes, everything is so different. You just never know, but so many of the issues are magnified by sugar and carbs that you can almost just say yes and Marsha would be right. It’s not going to be every case.
Kinna: And throw in your favorite coffee too and alcohol. Look there’s all your favorites right there, Tony.
Tony: It is, see. So it’s just those things have the ability to cause issues. And if you really just want immediate improvement that would, that would be the first step that people could take so easily and a lot of them would see improvement without putting in effort towards straightening out other issues. But I don’t know why you’re looking at me so wide eyed right now. Kinna, you want to hear a story you’ll love me for?
Will: So before I knew…
Kinna: What? Alcohol does wonders for your body?
Will: Yes! Before, did I tell you about that already?
Kinna: No, no.
Will: So before I knew about this whole body chemistry imbalance stuff I was just on a lot of like fitness supplements like stimulants. I never took anabolic steroids or anything but a lot of garbage stuff from GNC. And my nervous system was super tweaked, like really stuck in flight or fight. So my blood flow was very shunted and I had all this intense pain in my extremities. And when I went to Thailand I just drank a bunch of Sambuka, didn’t work out, didn’t take any of the supplements and I felt amazing! Like I had no pain in my…
Kinna: I’m going to Thailand.
Will: I know, right. But it was all, but I had no pain in my hands, or my feet or my legs. And they were…
Kinna: You were too drunk to feel it.
Will: Well, well because alcohol is a vasodilator. It like opened up my vascular system so all the sudden I had blood flow in my extremities.
Kinna: Are you listening to this?
Tony: No I, I get it. We’ve talked about this on another show before too.
Will: So for me like alcohol was awesome. And it, it really fixed my chemistry. So there you go, Kinna.
Kinna: Okay so why am I on a 90 day no drinking?
Will: I don’t know.
Kinna: Which I’m on three weeks right now. Actually I’m five days away from one month. And I’m not an alcoholic, people. I just like sugar.
Tony: Affection?
Kinna: Affection, getting drunk.
Will: So recap?
Tony: Yeah, so recap. Go.
Will: So look at your body chemistry, make sure you digestion is working well. Get all those places in, in a balanced condition with a special, with special attention to the catabolic/anabolic imbalance and this issue. And then also look at your alignment and make sure that your body mechanics are correct. You can go to MyBodyOfKnowledge.net and type in the little search box “pain relief” or “pain relief videos.” And there’s a lot of stuff that will teach you how your alignment should be and exercises you can use to fix it. Tony?
Tony: And, and when, and when we’re showing you how to look at your own body chemistry with the simple tests don’t skip the blood sugar one. Try and get a glucometer from a friend whose diabetic or maybe you can borrow it just for a night or something. But check your fasting blood sugar because if it’s super high all of that sugar is pulling calcium out of the tissues and that’s going to exacerbate a lot of issues when it comes to joint pain. So don’t, don’t skip that part; it’s real important.
Kinna: Cause it has to do with sugar! Sugar. Alright everybody so that was fun. If you want to learn more about how to look at your own chemistry you can read any of Tony’s books or take the free four week Digestion Course at KickItInTheNuts.com. Until next week
Tony: We’ll be talking about Velcro.
Kinna: Nice!
Tony: I don’t know why but I think we’re going to cover Velcro.
Kinna: I bet it has something to do with digestion.
Tony: Probably.
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