Arthritis with Wil Seto

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from Remarkable Speaking. I'm here with Wil Seto of Insync Physio in Vancouver. One of the top physiotherapy clinics in Vancouver, and one of the best physios in Vancouver. And we're talking about arthritis and how physiotherapy might be able to help you. How you doing Wil? 

Wil: I'm doing good. Thanks Mark. 

Mark: So I thought that, you know, arthritis was just, you take pills to try and make the pain go away and you just, you, you live with it. Am I wrong? 

Wil: Well, let's say you can break it down a little bit more. So let's talk about like one specific type of arthritis that we actually deal with a lot with our physio group at the clinics. And that's called osteoarthritis. So there's all these other different types of arthritis, which like rheumatoid arthritis and then all these other arthritis is that are basically kind of more systemic in origin. And you take pills for that as well.

And, you know, sometimes with the osteoarthritis and I'll explain to you what that is in a second, but like with osteoarthritis, you know, sometimes the doctor will actually also prescribe Tylenol as a pain reliever. And so what osteoarthritis in very simple terms, It's just basically a degeneration of your joint, based on wear and tear. So there's not a systemic issue going on in terms of like the same type of rheumatoid arthritis. So with rheumatoid usually affects multiple joints and it's not like isolated to one area because of wear and tear.

Now, if you've had like an injury per se, so I'll give you a specific example. Like let's say an individual, an athlete, tears their ACL and their meniscus, and they have to get that meniscus that little cushiony part in the knee removed and the ACL repaired. Now they lack more of that cushion. Now it is true that you will have a higher chance of developing osteoarthritis cause it's the wear and tear of the joint.

So this is where, you know, the question of how does physio help with this type of arthritis. That's a very good question. And ultimately, you wanna look at the joint being like, so in the joint you have what's called synovial fluid. Synovial fluid is basically like the oil for your joints.

And so you essentially wanna keep the joint moving and that's gonna keep joint healthy. And what you also wanna do is you wanna keep all the muscles around that joint functioning and healthy too, which will keep the joint moving in equilibrium. Because the other thing you don't wanna do is that you don't wanna have excessive amounts of force pulling on that joint because there's imbalances in those muscles.

So for example, going back to the ACL example. Let's say I get super, extremely tight in one of my quad muscles, my rectus femoris, because you know, like I compensate post injury or whatever. And so now I'm gonna get a lot more increased excessive forces on my kneecap, which is called the patella. And it's gonna come up, causing a condition called patella alta. So what happens is then you're gonna get that rubbing and you're more prone to a degenerative effect in your kneecap. So we want balance things out. We don't want to have things imbalanced. And so that's important too.

Now, going back to what I said about that synovial fluid. The more, we keep the body moving, the more that we pump the fluid in and out. So that fluid carries nutrients to the joint, because usually in the joint, you don't really have a rich blood supply. So then you would need to rely on that synovial fluid and you need to have a pumping mechanism.

So merely getting the joint moving, pumps out that old synovial fluid and then pumps in fresh nutrients for that joint, keeping in healthy. So that's how physiotherapy can help. Prescriptive exercises looking at what exactly is tight, what exactly is weak, to support a more optimal alignment. Either of the joint. So in your knee, for example, if you're like a runner and you're trying to get back to running post injury. Maybe your hip muscle, called your gluteus medius is weak and it's causing this alignment issue when you're running in your knee. 

So we address that, then that's gonna make things move more smoothly in the knee, and you're not gonna get an abnormal biomechanics happening in the knee. And so that's the really important thing is we're also retraining your neuro muscular system. So neuro being the nerve, muscle skeletal system. So getting that all, working together properly. Helping you develop a more optimal way of moving those muscles around that joint for better joint health.

Mark: So bottom line, if you've got some arthritis showing up, pain, it needs to be diagnosed by doctor first. Correct? 

Wil: Yes and no. We get a lot of people that come in that haven't been seen by a doctor. And we're like, yeah, that looks like osteoarthritis. And, you know, you can confirm it with a scan, but if it's really kind of borderline, you're not really sure. Then we send in the doctor for more additional tests, maybe rule out other types of arthritis. So that's possible too. 

Mark: And you work in conjunction with doctors all the time? 

Wil: Absolutely. Our whole team does, yes. 

Mark: Referring back and forth. So if you've got some joint pain, And you want expert analysis and you wanna see if it can get better or you've been diagnosed with osteoarthritis and you want to not have it get worse. Cause if you don't do anything, it's gonna get worse. But if you start moving in a proper way, you're gonna get that synovial fluid in there. You're gonna have a longer expectation of good movement in your joints. And a lot less problem when you're 90 years old, like my dad, and can't really move all that well. And so you want get into Insync Physio. Where to book Insync physio.com or you can give them a call. The Vancouver offices, (604) 566-9716. And they also have an office in North Burnaby. Thanks Wil. 

Thanks Mark. And remember motion is lotion.