Diabetes and Joint Pain: What you can do about it

Diabetes—a disorder brought on by high blood sugar levels (BSL)—can, over time, cause significant damage to the entire body. Uncontrolled high BSL affects almost every organ and the body’s various systems from the nervous system to the muscle-skeletal system. Many diabetics—almost half of all adults with diabetes, as per the Arthritis Foundation—suffer from arthritis as well.

Diabetes and joint pain: Cause

Untreated and unmanaged high blood sugar can damage the musculoskeletal system, leading to compromised movement and pain.

Joint problems are often seen in correlation with long-term diabetes. This damage occurs due to high BSL, which damages nerves and blood vessels, and leads to erosion of the joint-cartilage cushioning the ends of the joints, As a result, the bones grate on each other, causing pain, inflammation, and soreness.

Typical conditions include:

• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
• Dupuytren’s contracture:
  A condition characterized by the growth of tissue in the palm of the hand, which draws the fingers in and prevents the patient from extending the fingers.
• Frozen shoulder
• Rotator cuff pain
• Diabetic neuropathy
  Damage to the nerves of the entire central nervous system. This is a progressive disorder that affects almost all the organs in the body from the hands and feet to the nerves of the chest, digestive tract, and thoracic region
• Charcot’s Joint:
  Aka, neuropathic arthropathy, affects a lot of diabetics. Beyond the discomfort of limited range of motion and pain. These disorders can lead to extensive damage, as patients suffer from limited sensation in these areas, which can lead to problems like broken feet or twisted ankles.
• Osteoarthritis:
  Type 2 diabetes has a strong connection to excess body weight. Being obese or overweight puts a lot of stress on the joints, especially the joints of the leg and hips, which do the bulk of the work in most day-to-day physical activities.
• Excess weight
  It is also a big risk factor of developing Type 2 diabetes. Losing the excess flab has a big effect on BSL and will also enhance mobility.

Treatment

A regular regimen of healthy food and exercise combined with stress management will improve the management of BSL and will reduce the risk of joint problems. Studies show that shedding just 5 kilos can relieve almost 20 kilos of pressure from the knee joints.

Proper management of BSL, through the earlier-mentioned diet-exercise-stress management, should also include medical supervision to ensure timely medical intervention if and when needed and lower the danger of contracting either hyper- or hypo-glycemia.

It goes without saying that the ideal solution is to reverse diabetes completely. This will take away the risk of joint pain, as well as all the other complications that diabetes brings. Since our inception, we, at Freedom from Diabetes, have evolved a highly effective diabetes reversal program that relies on four major protocols (diet, exercise, stress management, and medical) to release diabetics from the tyranny of diabetes medicines and health complications. To learn more about our diabetes reversal program, known as the Holistic Transformation Program (HTP), visit us at www.freedomfromdiabetes.org