I'm fairly young and just got diagnosed with degenerative joint disease (osteoarthritis) in my SI joints. Aside from taking glucosamine and chondroitin supplements, what else can I do to slow the degeneration?

Some resources:

https://www.google.com/health/ref/Osteoarthritis
http://www.medicinenet.com/osteoarthritis/article.htm
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/osteoarthritis/DS00019
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/osteoarthritis.html

And you should seriously consider a second opinion, especially with a specialist.

Student Health is part of a respected hospital and they had a hospital radiologist interpret the x-rays, so I’m apt to believe what they saw. The problem is that I don’t have insurance, but I would definitely be open to getting a second opinion if I could work it out somehow.

4000 IU D3, 1250 Mgs Omega-fish oil gel, 1 T ground flax seed oil will help lubricate joints. Dark, leafy greens will supply a suprising amount of good calcium.

Gluc./condroitin supps proven to do very little.

Walking and weight-bearing exercises will also strengthen your bone structure. Doc sounds like a jerk. Call and make an app’t with Doc when she isn’t so rushed. Taking NSAIDS on a regular basis is a bad idea.

Many people have odd X-rays showing wear-and-tear and some degeneration and they go through life pain-free.

@gailcalled – I do have pain, though I thought it was sciatica. I also have chronic lumbar pain, but the x-rays showed no obvious reason for it. I probably will not take NSAIDs regularly, as they really don’t work for me at all, anyway.

Omega-3s were something else I thought might help, that’s good to know. Are you sure about the glucosamine and chondroitin? I saw on one of those pages that studies are showing they’re effective for maintaining joints, just not the building of new cartilage. Calcium will help?

And sorry to be dense, could you explain “4000 IU D3”, please? :)

Vitamin D3 seems to help almost everything. 4000 international Units daily (split into 2000 in AM and 2000in PM) is the new MDR (minimum daily requirement for an adult). My Internist and my Dermatologist (who uses it for controlling Fibromyalgia) both swear by it.

D3 has its own council: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/

Jury is still out on Gluc. Cond. It didn’t help me but it can’t hurt. Give it two months.

I have had chronic lower back pain since I was 26. I use heat, stretches (taught by a good Physical Therapist – you need an Rx) and regular controlled walking and dumbbells. Also I schlep around a lower back cushion for restaurants, movies, theaters, etc and keep one in the car.

@MissAnthrope , I also have this condition in my spine and some other major joints. I am older than you but believe I began showing symptoms at about your age.
I have had two spinal surgeries and may have more in the future. That doesn’t mean that is what will happen with you.
Try to maintain a good weight and good health all around. Low impact exercise and strong muscles will help you in the long run. Perhaps you can see a specialist when you are able and a physical therapist to learn the proper exercises and ways to take care of your self.
It is not necessarily a dire diagnosis. I think my life is pretty good, and I would rather have this than a lot of other ailments that I can think of.

Yeah, I think the back cushion is going to be an inevitability, as my bouts of back pain are becoming more frequent and the seating in my classes is anything but helpful (some of them, oh my god, ow). My SI joints are frequently sore, though I thought it was just sciatica.

@wilma – Thanks. The school used to have a program where it was $30 for 4 PT sessions, but discontinued it this school year. However, the doctor is actually quite caring and is going to try to get the PT school to see me at a financially-feasible rate. I’d like to learn the right stretches and that sort of thing, so I can start working on this now before it’s too bad. Are you able to get around okay most of the time, or have you found it to decrease your activity? That’s what I’m most worried about.. I love to hike and walking is one of my preferred methods of exercise.

@MissAnthrope I strongly urge you to obtain a second opinion, or a formal evaluation by a rheumatologist. SI joint osteoarthritis is common, but you are quite young. Other entities that affect the SI joint include gout, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis (psoriatic arthritis), and ankylosing spondylitis. Given your age, I imagine you are much more likely to have something else other than osteoarthritis, such as ankylosing spondylitis.

@MissAnthrope, I have some limitations, but I get where I need to be.
I have not always been as careful with my health as I should have been. Weight gains and losses, sometimes lack of regular exercise, not always an optimum diet, etc.
I think if I had been more diligent, I could be better than I am.
My advice no matter what ails you is just keep moving.
Take good care of yourself, you will never regret that.

When I was your same age I was told that I had terrible arthritis in my spine. I was bemused because I had never had any problems with my back, although I had been having problems with my hands and feet for about 10 years prior to that. Twenty years later the x-rays look even worse, but as long as I do my core exercises faithfully I have little or no pain. As I have heard many times, with arthritis it’s use it or lose it.

A second opinion would be an excellent idea. First, it would be to determine what the actual cause of the pain is, whether it is a form of arthritis or something else such as the ankylosing spondylitis @shilolo cites. Next, it would be to determine what you can do to can do to minimize pain and maximize function, such as define and treat the cause as well as the symptoms, use electrotherapy equipment to treat affected tissues, if safe level the pelvis via manipulation, use massage to relieve soft tissue tension in the area, undertake a rehabilitation program to correct any muscle imbalances, take Ibuprofin or some other NSAID as needed for pain if your doctor says to, and, if all else fails, a corticosteroid injection into the SI joint to reduce inflammation.

@MissAnthrope – “just sciatica”?

Sciatica is is a symptom of a problem involving the sciatic nerve, the longest nerve in the body. It shows up as pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling in the leg and is caused by injury to or compression of the sciatic nerve. It can be a real problem that needs to be fixed, although fortunately it can go away on its own.

Okay, sounds like a second, more specialized opinion is in order. I’ll have to figure out how to make that happen. @shilolo – I do have psoriasis (on my elbow), so the psoriatic arthritis suggestion is interesting. The truth is, I don’t know offhand of anyone in my immediate family who had or has arthritis, certainly no one under the age of 70.

@Darwin – I didn’t mean to suggest that sciatica is nothing.. I’ve experienced sciatica-like symptoms, if not sciatica, and it can be excruciating, I imagine what I felt is mild compared to the more serious cases. I guess mainly I’m feeling sorry for myself because I feel way too young to start all this kinda business, you know?

My father was just diagnosed with osteoarthritis as well, the diagnosis did not sit well with me, as they basically said “You’re 47 and have this disease, I’m sorry”
So, he saw a specialist, and he informed him most people his age have the same amount of osteoarthritis in their spine, but my father actually had major disc issues…he is now being properly treated for them and finally starting to feel better.
I would definitely get a second opinion.

I forgot to mention a very acidic diet or if you water is acidic requires an alkaline element like Calcium to balance your bodies pH. Sodas, and caffeinated beverages like coffee(caffeine stays in your system for 2 days no bueno on a regular basis, if you drink it make sure you drink water before during and after consumption especially in the morning since you slept all night using water to breathe and purify cells/blood… when you wake up the first thing you should do is have at least 2 glasses of water.) , has a pH of 3.5 which is 10,000 times more acidic than pure water which should be at 7 which represents 0 on the pH scale. Now imagine your body has to bring the pH of anything you consume to your bodies pH to be able to process it and eliminate it as waste. So if it doesn’t have enough water in the body in conjunction with useful calcium it has no choice but its last resort which is to take it from your bones. Don’t worry your body can totally turn this around and regenerate itself. I would recommend buying some pH strips and monitor your urine levels daily. Just as a visual check if your urine comes out dark and smelly it means your body is dehydrated, if you take a whole bunch of vitamins it will look like this too. The reason for this is your body is in water conservation mode which means it’s using the minimum amount of water possible to get the toxins out and leave water for the more important aspects of your body i.e. brain, lungs, heart… The same is true for fecal waste, if your constipated same deal, your colon can squeeze water out to use for other functions, problem is water is the lubricant used to excrete waste. I hope this comes across clear.

Sorry had to re-post without due to a “self promoting” Link.

I understand how hard it is for young people in the modern world to deal with sicknesses that we believed only “old people” got. Allow me to paint a picture of what are bodies are up against on a daily basis. And to think all we really need is clean air, quality life affirming naturally organic food that is not always heated since this can change the properties of it, and water, with our mineral rich sea salt. Instead allot of our food is infested with many chemicals, it has been genetically modified, then its chocked full of preservatives(preservatives are very acidic and create an atmosphere ill-suited for natural growth, that applies to you as a natural organism as well), juices are pasteurized to kill any of the good living bacteria it had left in it (if you want orange juice eat an orange, if you crave apple juice eat an apple. like anything in life if you want the best purest form of something go to the source.), then tons of all that goodness is deep fried to make certain no real nutritional content is left in it, and to make matters worse most every American is chronically de-hydrated, and deprived of real salt: just because too much bad salt is bad(iodized salt) doesn’t mean salt is bad, the little water we do drink is “dead” water that is unstructured and full of chemicals, then you go take a shower, or bath in which the chlorine in the water which is the second most toxic element found in nature and evaporates at room temperature, which means in anything other than a cold shower, or if your not using a shower filter you breathing in chloroform gas. . I think it’s a shame that the focus of the population is on material possessions, and all we seem to do anymore is give things names, and then provide a drug which covers symptoms since science missed some basic building blocks along the way. The building blocks in order of importance: oxygen, water, Salt (real mineral rich sea salt, not idolized salt), and potassium are the primary elements for survival of the human body.

I could go on and get into the emotional side and how that plays into health, but the point is most of us don’t realize the kind of bombardment we are under throughout our daily life so when we come down with some major ailment and say “What happened I was just fine and bam got hit out of nowhere like the opposite of winning the health lottery.” Your body is an amazing device capable of handling so much and adapting to compensate short term for lacks of certain elements in diet, but these are like emergency fault modes and if you don’t fix the real problem diet wise something will eventually breakdown.

Now to answer a little bit of your question:

1) Milk is not a very good source of calcium since it was designed for a mammal much bigger than us and built completely different on the inside with multiple stomachs…
There are plants which provide the same benefit but are much easier for your body to assimilate. Here are a few examples:
Daily minimum is 1,000 mg/day of calcium
1) Kale: 1 lbs raw=615.0mg Calcium
2) lambsquarters: 1 lbs raw= 1403.0 mg calcium
3) Turnip greens: 1 lbs raw= 190 mg

There are many more but this will get you started with some of the best options.

Furthermore about 27% of the salt content of the body is stored in the bones in the form of crystals. It is said that salt crystals are naturally used to make bones hard. Thus salt deficiency in the body also could be responsible for the development of osteoporosis. Salt will be taken out of the bones to maintain its vital normal levels in the blood.

I have developed a rule of thumb for daily salt intake. For every 10 glasses of water (about 2 quarts), one should add to the diet about half a teaspoon of salt per day. An average teaspoon can contain six grams of salt. Of course one should make sure that the kidneys are producing urine. Otherwise the body will swell up. If you sense your skin and ankles are beginning to swell, do not panic. Reduce salt intake for a few days, and increase your water intake till the swelling in the legs disappears. You should also increase your movements—exercise; muscle activity will draw the excess fluid into the blood circulation and some salt is then lost in perspiration and urine. Do not stand or sit in one position too long. Movement of all your joints allows water to enter the water cushions which provide 30% of the support for your joints.

I would recommend reading Your Body’s Many Cries for Water By: F. Batmanghelidji, M.D.

Also Please go to my website to learn a little more about water it is the life blood of the earth and you are essentially a walking blob of water, it is one of the least taught subjects and we are paying the price daily suffering pains spending money on drugs and going to every option other than back to basics.

I forgot to mention a very acidic diet or if you water is acidic requires an alkaline element like Calcium to balance your bodies pH. Sodas, and caffeinated beverages like coffee(caffeine stays in your system for 2 days no bueno on a regular basis, if you drink it make sure you drink water before during and after consumption especially in the morning since you slept all night using water to breathe and purify cells/blood… when you wake up the first thing you should do is have at least 2 glasses of water.) , has a pH of 3.5 which is 10,000 times more acidic than pure water which should be at 7 which represents 0 on the pH scale. Now imagine your body has to bring the pH of anything you consume to your bodies pH to be able to process it and eliminate it as waste. So if it doesn’t have enough water in the body in conjunction with useful calcium it has no choice but its last resort which is to take it from your bones. Don’t worry your body can totally turn this around and regenerate itself. I would recommend buying some pH strips and monitor your urine levels daily. Just as a visual check if your urine comes out dark and smelly it means your body is dehydrated, if you take a whole bunch of vitamins it will look like this too. The reason for this is your body is in water conservation mode which means it’s using the minimum amount of water possible to get the toxins out and leave water for the more important aspects of your body i.e. brain, lungs, heart… The same is true for fecal waste, if your constipated same deal, your colon can squeeze water out to use for other functions, problem is water is the lubricant used to excrete waste. I hope this comes across clear.

Hope this helps, I would love to hear of any results due to any of the advice mentioned, Thank you, Milan Bender