Arthritis Specialist in Charleston

The underlying cause of arthritis depends on the type. Your arthritis specialist in Charleston can help you narrow down the source of your pain through personalized care and comprehensive diagnostics.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-immune disorder, meaning your immune system mistakenly perceives your body’s own structures as a threat. This leads it to attack your healthy joint tissue and cartilage, and it may also gradually wear away at the surrounding bone.

There is no single known cause of rheumatoid arthritis, but infection, hormonal changes, genetics, and environmental factors can increase your likelihood of developing the chronic condition.

Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis can develop as a result of age, repeated stress, or bone deformities. It typically begins when joint stress and a biological predisposition trigger an inflammatory response. This inflammatory response floods the joint with inflammatory mediators that stimulate the breakdown of joint cartilage, increase joint swelling, and cause pain.

While some patients feel only pain, others with osteoarthritis can feel a “creaky” stiffness upon waking, notice reduced range of motion, or feel a grating sensation when using the affected joint.

Some people have both forms of arthritis, experiencing common symptoms such as joint pain, stiffness, swelling, decreased range of motion, and fatigue.

Yes, our arthritis specialist in Charleston can diagnose you with arthritis.

Diagnosis often involves a combination of medical history, physical examination, imaging tests (X-rays, MRI), and sometimes blood tests to rule out other conditions.

While there is no cure for arthritis, visiting an osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis specialist can help manage symptoms and improve quality of life. Maintaining a healthy weight, regular exercise, a balanced diet rich in anti-inflammatory foods, and managing stress can all help to alleviate symptoms and improve joint health.

Unfortunately, arthritis is not completely preventable but is extremely manageable. Some risk factors for arthritis can’t be changed, such as age and genetics. However, adopting a healthy lifestyle and protecting joints from injury can help reduce the risk of developing arthritis or delay its onset.

You’ll meet one-on-one with an arthritis specialist at InterveneMD. During this conversation, expect to discuss your medical history, any symptoms or health conditions, and your goals for your care. Depending on your needs, your provider may recommend or conduct some diagnostic testing to get a better understanding of your body’s anatomy. Using all of this information, your provider will create a customized treatment plan to help you reach your health and wellness goals.

If you are concerned about developing osteoarthritis in the future, our arthritis specialist in Charleston can proactively preserve your joint health.

During your initial consultation, your provider gets to know more about you, diving deeper into your family and medical history. At this time, you can share any concerns you have regarding your wellness.

Your expert practitioner can perform diagnostic imaging to confirm the current state of your bone, cartilage, and muscle health before moving forward with a treatment plan. Depending on the progression of the disease, your arthritis specialist might recommend a regenerative program, including treatment options such as:

• Low-impact Vasper exercise therapy to keep joints lubricated and free while strengthening the muscles around the joints, improving your natural support.
• Hyalgan injections, made from moisturizing hyaluronic acid, to ‌give your joints extra padding and reduce inflammation and pain.
• Prolotherapy injections featuring platelet-rich plasma and human growth hormone to stimulate tissue repair and fortification.
• Peptide injections that improve cellular communication to encourage tissue regeneration and healing.

Though arthritis has no known cure, we can control the habits further contributing to your pain.

As you work with our arthritis specialist in Charleston, they help you identify any behaviors that can exacerbate the symptoms of this disease, and they support you as you implement any lifestyle changes alongside your regenerative therapies.

Lifestyle factors that affect your pain might include:

• Nutrition: Consuming processed foods high in dietary fats can lead to inflammation throughout the body. In contrast, a nutrient-rich diet with leafy greens, fruits, and vegetables gives your system the boost it needs to fight inflammation.
• Body weight: The weight you carry each day causes stress on your joints. Extra body weight inherently amplifies osteoarthritis, speeding up the degradation of your tissues and bones. Adipose (fatty) tissue also contributes to increased swelling around the joints.
• Activity levels: Lack of consistent movement can make your joints stiffer and weaken your muscles. Gentle exercise helps restore the muscles surrounding your joints, soothe inflammation, enable joint lubrication, and improve mobility.
• Sleep: When you get inadequate or nonrestorative sleep, your body can’t subdue inflammation. Waking up fatigued can also lower your threshold for pain. With balanced sleep-wake cycles, your body can properly relax and detoxify, easing muscular tension and painful inflammation.

Each patient’s experience with arthritis is unique. Some patients notice their symptoms worsen when they miss a dose of their pain medication or skip their regular treatment session at InterveneMD.

Others experience an arthritis flare-up when they:

• Overexert themselves physically
• Face new or worsening life stressors
• Fight other active infections
• Get poor sleep

If you keep track of when, for how long, and with what intensity your arthritis symptoms flare up, your arthritis specialist in Charleston can help you better manage your triggers and control your pain for lasting relief.

The timing of your body’s response to treatment depends on the arthritis progression, your personal lifestyle practices, and your unique treatment plan. Some patients benefit from multiple treatment sessions with various therapies spread across several months.

Often, our arthritis specialist in Charleston recommends the following treatment durations for our most common arthritis support programs:

• Vasper exercise: 2 sessions per week for 8 weeks, with ongoing improvements in mobility and inflammation.
• Shockwave therapy: at least 4 to 8 sessions, with the pain-relieving effects settling in 3 weeks after your first treatment.
• Laser therapy: 6 to 12 treatments, with many patients feeling pain relief after as few as 3 sessions.
• Prolotherapy: 1 to 5 sessions, with your body responding to treatment approximately 4 months after your first injection.
• Pentosan polysulfate therapy: 2 injections per week for 6 weeks, repeated every 6 months.
• Steroid injections: 1 to 4 treatments, with the results taking effect 1 week after your first injection.
• Hyalgan injections: at least 3 injections, each spaced 6 months apart, with benefits settling in 1 week after your first treatment.

Once you begin your arthritis treatment plan with InterveneMD, our expert providers continuously tailor your treatment schedule, modifying or introducing additional therapies as desired.

During your consultation, your arthritis specialist can provide more specific answers about relief timelines based on your specific treatment plan.