I’m frequently asked to expand on how ‘cured’ I am – what am I now able to do. I’m also asked how many other people have had the same outcome.

The likelihood of you achieving a good outcome is dependent upon a number of factors – not least what you consider a good outcome to be! Do you simply want to be able to go about your daily life without constant pain, or do you want to be a competitive ultra-distance runner or olympic weightlifter? The former may be achievable quite quickly and easily – the latter will require near perfect bio-mechanics and may take longer!

In the book I suggest that at least a year of rehab would be required for most people to untangle their muscle imbalance and to be free of OA symptoms. Yet six weeks after the book release I’ve spotted a review of the book on the Amazon.com site that says:

 “Great book, have completed the exercise plan, hip pain gone.”

This person couldn’t have had the book for more than 6 weeks yet they are now pain free. Are they completely cured? It’s very unlikely that the muscle imbalance is gone completely in such a short space of time. However, most people don’t need to get rid of the imbalance – or indeed all of the hip symptoms – to consider themselves adequately cured. If you look at things objectively you realise that most mature adults – with or without an OA diagnosis – have pretty severe muscle imbalances that cause them discomfort and limit what they are able to do. Most regard this as a natural consequence of aging – but it’s not. It’s dysfunction due to a combination of abuse and misuse. It is almost always likely to be caused by reversible muscle imbalance, yet I would guess that the vast majority of the population wouldn’t feel motivated to reverse their condition; they consider themselves ‘good enough’ as they are. If being no worse than the average person in your age group would be “good enough” for you, then you may well achieve satisfactory results in significantly less than a year.

I’ve been sharing my experiences and knowledge online and via email for a couple of years now. Long before I published the book I was helping others – via email and discussion forums – to achieve the same outcome as myself. Lots of people have told me they are now out of pain and living a fuller life. I’d say a good dozen people have informed me that they’ve been able to cancel hip replacement surgery. They all consider themselves to have had an excellent outcome. This was often achieved relatively quickly and easily with some reporting life-changing improvement in a few short weeks.

Here’s an example :

“Dear Susan

It’s been a long time – over a year I by now. Your advice gave me hope, following your advice saved me a hip replacement. By now I am able to walk twenty miles some days and six to ten on the ones in between. I also do an hour to ninety minutes yoga every morning and have lost much of the weight I gained through inactivity. Not bad at 66!

So I wanted to thank you again and encourage you to keep getting the word out to anyone who wants to listen. Without you life for me by now would have been very different.

Warmest regards

Janet”

Are they Really Cured – Would a Doctor Still Diagnose OA?

The answer to this question depends upon the definition of OA you use.

Radiographic Ostoarthritis

As I explained in the book, Radiographic Osteoarthritis is simply x-ray or MRI evidence of degeneration of a joint. In most people this is benign and harmless. The older you get, the greater the chance of you having Radiographic Osteoarthrits in at least one joint in your body. After age 40 it’s very common, but most people are blissfully unaware of it. I know that I have Radiographic Osteoarthritis in both hips, and at various points in my spine; ten years ago I was told I had moderate to severe Radiographic Osteoarthritis in my neck. Despite this, I have no symptoms or weakness as you can see from this photo taken of my head-balancing/handstand/headstand practice today!!

Radiographic Osteoarthritis seems to be a bit of a red herring – akin to a scar on the skin; it might not look pretty but it’s simply evidence of the body’s healing mechanism at work. The only relevance I see is that it could be viewed as an indication that your body isn’t functioning as well as it should. Just as tyres wear if the tracking on your car is off, so too will your joints wear if you have muscle imbalances. However whilst worn tyres must be replaced, your joints are self-repairing. Much of what shows up on x-ray/scans as ‘degenerative changes’ is repair rather than wear. What is more, research shows that doctors and radiographers can’t tell from looking at an x-ray film which cases are likely to be symptomatic; there is no correlation between Radiographic Osteoarthritis and symptoms. Many people live symptom-free lives despite having Radiographic Osteoarthritis.

If you’ve ever had Radiographic Osteoarthrits it’s highly likely that you still have it. But does it matter? I believe not. It’s certainly not stopping me from doing anything I want to do – and I love to do extreme activities that most healthy twenty somethings would consider too taxing!

Symptomatic Osteoarthritis

If you no longer have symptoms then by definition you no longer have symptomatic osteoarthritis. Even if you have a few remaining symptoms it still might cease to be cateogorised as Osteoarthritis. Remember, there is no test for Osteoarthritis – it is a diagnosis of exclusion. If for example you correct most of your imbalances, eliminate most of the symptoms, and what remains can be reliably diagnosed as a tight muscle or a Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI) such as bursitis or tendonitis, then the Osteoarthritis diagnosis is no longer valid.

I’ve had various people  – some of them health professionals – tell me that my Osteoarthritis is merely ‘in remission’.

Remission: a temporary diminution of the severity of disease or pain.

They are never able to expand on the nature of this ‘remission’ – how and why does it occur? Truthfully, remission generally isn’t a feature of hip osteoarthritis. As most of us know, the severity of hip OA symptoms can fluctuate but it rarely takes a holiday in the way that Rheumatoid arthritis can. Once hip OA locks up and gets stiff and sore, it tends to stay that way.

That said, I believe there is some validity in the ‘remission’ theory – just not in the way most people think. In the book I talk about the difference between a functional muscle imbalance and a pathological muscle imbalance. If you treat a pathological muscle imbalance sufficiently to eliminate symptoms without banishing it completely, you have effectively downgraded it from a pathological to a functional state. Without continued rehab it might tip back over into a pathological state in the future; to some extent this would qualify as “remission”. Having said that, many people live long and active lives despite pretty severe, barely-functional muscle imbalances.

It’s a Tougher Battle for Athletes with High Expectations

A lot of the people that get contact me are (or were) keen athletes; competitive footballers, triathletes, martial artists or people with demanding physical jobs. Some are still relatively young – maybe in their 30’s and 40’s. In order for them to return to the life they love they probably need to resolve their muscle imbalance completely. A full resolution of the imbalance is not so easily achieved, but it is certainly possible.

Success is likely to depend upon a number of factors. I think the most important is tenacity – an absolute refusal to give up:

• no matter how long it takes;
• no matter what setbacks you experience;
• no matter what hurdles are put in your path!

You need to keep fighting despite the fact that there are no guarantees of success. That’s very hard to do.

The book, along with this website, will hopefully improve your chances of staying the course and achieving your desired outcome. Some will also find it encouraging to hear about where I am now.

What I’m Doing Now

I would say that without a doubt my hip OA has been cured for some time now – as have all of my other painful joints. I don’t experience any pain; any little minor twinges I have nowadays can very definitely be put down to a transient trigger point or a touch of mild tendonitis. According to the diagnostic criteria I no longer have hip OA.  I am in significantly better shape and more functional than most people of my age (53). However, I am aiming higher than “good for my age”; I want to make up for 10 lost years and pursue sports and physical activities to a very high level. That’s going to take near-perfect bio-mechanics, and I’m not there yet – I still have lingering imbalances.

I’m currently working with a Personal Trainer who specializes in bodybuilding and has an excellent understanding of bio-mechanics. I started on a one year plan with him in January this year. Our goal is to restore perfect mechanics and muscle balance, increase muscle mass, and build extreme strength and fitness. I aim to be fit and strong by any standards – not just fit for an old woman that once had an OA diagnosis! Many would consider me 100% cured already, but I am aware of lingering issues that create problems when I put my body under abnormal load.

Currently I train hard six days a week for at least a couple of hours each day. My training involves heavy weight training, calisthenics and cardiovascular training. I can run, but have decided to put this on hold until my running mechanics are perfect – I still have a very dominant side to my body. We’re finding outstanding issues with pelvic stability when it comes to doing heavy squats and deadlifts and there are little peculiarities in the way my shoulders move during upper body exercises. There are still subtle little twists and turns in my spine. I need to resolve these lingering problems before I can do all the things I want to do, but it’s a relatively straightforward process; I am no longer battling an incurable disease.

Despite the lingering imbalances my current abilities include 240kg hack squats – my hip joints are being well tested! I’m working towards extreme calisthenics skills such as human flags and have set leg strength goals including a 350kg leg press. I am not yet at the stage where I would want to get involved in sport at a highly competitive level; I think that would be likely to lead to injury and/or a worsening of the remaining imbalance. Nevertheless I have no doubt that it’s only a matter of time before I get everything working perfectly. My body will soon be functioning better than it ever did in my youth (in very many ways it already is!). After that the sky is the limit! I’ll post up details of my progress from time to time.

In the next post…

Whilst working with my Personal Trainer to iron out the remnants of the imbalance that caused my hip OA diagnoses I’ve learned a lot – things that might have led to a much faster cure had I known them years ago. I aim to share these in coming posts..