Arthritis Pain Relief: Chiropractic Care for Joint Pain
Your knees creak when you stand up. Your fingers are stiff every morning for the first hour. Your lower back aches constantly, and it’s getting worse every year. You’ve been told it’s arthritis, and you’ve been told to take anti-inflammatories and “manage it.”
But managing it isn’t the same as living well with it. Popping ibuprofen every day isn’t a long-term solution. And the idea that you just have to accept increasing pain and decreasing mobility as you get older? That’s not entirely true.
Chiropractic care can’t cure arthritis—nobody can. But it can significantly reduce your pain, improve how well your joints move, slow down the progression, and help you stay active and independent for years longer than you would without treatment. At Twin Cities Chiropractic in St. Paul, Dr. Scot Sorum has been helping arthritis patients move better and hurt less for over 20 years. Let me explain how.
What’s Actually Happening in Your Joints
Arthritis isn’t just one disease. It’s a general term for joint inflammation, and there are over 100 types. But the two most common ones we treat are:
Osteoarthritis is the wear-and-tear type. Over time, the cartilage that cushions your joints breaks down. Without that cushion, bones start rubbing closer together. The joint gets inflamed, stiff, and painful. This is what most people mean when they say “I have arthritis.” It usually shows up in your knees, hips, hands, lower back, and neck.
Degenerative disc disease is essentially spinal arthritis. The discs between your vertebrae lose water content and thin out over time. The joints in your spine degenerate. You lose flexibility, develop bone spurs, and the whole area gets stiff and painful. It’s incredibly common—if you’re over 50, there’s a good chance your spine shows some degenerative changes on an X-ray.
Here’s what people misunderstand about arthritis: the degeneration itself isn’t always what causes the pain. Plenty of people have arthritis on their X-rays but don’t hurt at all. The pain usually comes from the dysfunction around the arthritis—tight muscles, restricted joints, inflammation, nerve irritation, and compensatory movement patterns.
That’s exactly what chiropractic care addresses.
How Chiropractic Care Helps Arthritis
When a joint has arthritis, the worst thing you can do is let it stiffen up completely. Joints need movement to stay healthy. Movement pumps nutrients into the cartilage, flushes out inflammatory waste products, and keeps the surrounding muscles strong and flexible.
The problem is that arthritis makes movement painful. So you move less. This makes the joint stiffer. Which makes it hurt more. Which makes you move even less. It’s a vicious cycle, and chiropractic care breaks it.
Restoring Joint Movement
Dr. Sorum uses gentle adjustments to restore proper movement to arthritic joints. He’s not forcing anything or grinding bone against bone—that’s a common fear people have. The adjustments are modified for arthritic patients to be gentler, slower, and more controlled than standard adjustments.
What he’s doing is mobilizing the joint—getting it moving through its proper range of motion again. When a joint moves properly, it functions better. Inflammation decreases, surrounding muscles relax, and pain goes down.
For spinal arthritis, chiropractic adjustments keep the vertebral joints mobile so they don’t lock up completely. For arthritis in other joints—knees, hips, shoulders—similar mobilization techniques help maintain function.
Reducing Inflammation Naturally
When joints move better, inflammation naturally decreases. But Dr. Sorum also uses additional therapies to calm inflamed joints:
Ice and heat therapy in strategic combination—ice to reduce acute inflammation, heat to relax tight muscles and improve blood flow.
Electrical stimulation to decrease pain signals and reduce muscle guarding around arthritic joints.
Soft tissue work to release the tight, protective muscles around arthritic joints. Joy Vang’s massage therapy is particularly helpful here. She uses myofascial release and trigger point techniques to reduce muscle tension that’s adding to your pain.
Correcting Compensatory Patterns
This is something most people never think about, but it’s huge. When one joint hurts, you unconsciously change how you move to avoid the pain. You limp to protect your knee. You twist differently to avoid your stiff lower back. You use your left shoulder more because your right one aches.
These compensatory patterns create new problems. Your hip starts hurting because you’ve been favoring one leg. Your neck gets stiff because you’re holding your upper body differently to protect your lower back. You develop headaches because your neck tension is out of control.
Dr. Sorum identifies these compensatory patterns during your evaluation and addresses them alongside the primary arthritic joints. It’s not just about treating the arthritis—it’s about treating the whole chain of dysfunction it creates.
Building Support Around the Joint
Weak muscles around an arthritic joint make everything worse. Strong muscles around an arthritic joint take pressure off it and improve stability. This is where the physical therapy component of treatment becomes essential.
Dr. Sorum will give you specific exercises to strengthen the muscles surrounding your arthritic joints. For knee arthritis, that means quadriceps and hamstring strengthening. For spinal arthritis, core stabilization exercises. For hip arthritis, glute and hip flexor work.
These aren’t random gym exercises. They’re targeted, therapeutic exercises chosen specifically for your joints and your level of function. They start gently and progress as you get stronger.
What Arthritis Treatment Looks Like at Our Office
Your First Visit
Dr. Sorum starts by understanding your specific situation. When did the pain start? Which joints are affected? What makes it worse? What makes it better? What have you already tried? What activities have you stopped doing because of the pain?
He’ll do a thorough physical examination, checking joint mobility, muscle strength, inflammation, and your overall movement patterns. He might take X-rays if you haven’t had recent imaging, or he might review X-rays you already have.
Then he’ll be straight with you. He’ll tell you what’s going on, how much he thinks he can help, and what realistic improvement looks like. Arthritis isn’t going away—but your pain, stiffness, and functional limitations can absolutely get better.
Treatment Plan
For most arthritis patients, treatment looks something like this:
First 2-4 weeks: You’ll come in 2-3 times per week. Dr. Sorum will do gentle adjustments to restore mobility to your stiffest joints, combined with soft tissue work and pain-reducing therapies. You’ll start with basic exercises and stretches at home. The goal here is breaking the pain-stiffness cycle and getting things moving again.
Weeks 4-8: Visits drop to once or twice a week. Your joints are moving better, pain is decreasing, and now we’re building on that progress. Exercises get more challenging. We’re strengthening the muscles that support your joints and working on your movement patterns.
Ongoing maintenance: This is where arthritis treatment differs from treating an acute injury. With an injury, you recover and move on. With arthritis, the condition is ongoing, so some level of maintenance care usually makes sense. Most of our arthritis patients settle into a schedule of every 2-4 weeks for maintenance adjustments and periodic check-ins on their exercise program.
Some weeks are better than others with arthritis. Flare-ups happen—weather changes, overactivity, stress can all trigger increased pain. Having an established relationship with your chiropractor means you can get in quickly when you’re flaring and get ahead of it before it spirals.
Spinal Arthritis and Your Back
Spinal arthritis deserves special attention because it’s so common and because it can cause more than just back pain.
When your spinal joints degenerate, they can narrow the spaces where nerves exit the spine. This is called spinal stenosis, and it can cause pain, numbness, or weakness in your arms or legs depending on where the narrowing occurs. If you’re dealing with sciatica—pain shooting down your leg—spinal arthritis could be contributing.
Degenerative disc disease in your lower back can cause chronic back pain that gets worse with prolonged sitting, standing, or activity. In your neck, it can cause stiffness, pain, headaches, and sometimes arm pain or tingling.
Spinal decompression therapy can be particularly helpful for spinal arthritis. This gentle, non-surgical treatment creates negative pressure in the disc space, which helps restore some disc height, reduces pressure on compressed nerves, and improves nutrient flow to degenerated discs. It’s not going to reverse the arthritis, but it can significantly reduce pain and improve function.
Living with Arthritis: Beyond the Adjustments
Treatment in our office is important, but what you do outside the office matters just as much with arthritis.
Keep moving. This is the single most important thing. The worst thing for arthritic joints is inactivity. Walk daily. Swim if you can—the water supports your joints while giving you a great workout. Bike, garden, do yoga. Whatever movement you enjoy, keep doing it. Dr. Sorum can help you figure out which activities are safe for your specific joints.
Maintain a healthy weight. Every extra pound puts 4 pounds of additional force on your knees. Losing even 10 pounds can make a significant difference in joint pain, especially in weight-bearing joints.
Use heat in the morning. Arthritis stiffness is worst first thing in the morning. A warm shower, heating pad, or warm towel on stiff joints for 15-20 minutes can loosen things up and make starting your day much easier.
Ice after activity. If your joints swell or ache after activity, ice them for 15-20 minutes. This reduces inflammation before it gets out of control.
Listen to your body. There’s a difference between the normal discomfort of moving arthritic joints and pain that signals you’re doing too much. Learn the difference. Some discomfort during activity is normal. Sharp pain, increased swelling, or pain that lasts more than a day after activity means you need to dial it back.
Don’t stop activities you love. This is important. Too many people with arthritis gradually give up everything they enjoy—golf, hiking, playing with grandkids, and gardening. The goal of treatment is keeping you doing these things, not just reducing pain while you sit on the couch.
Arthritis at Different Ages
Arthritis doesn’t just affect aged persons, though it’s more common as you age.
In your 40s and 50s, you might notice early signs—morning stiffness that goes away within 30 minutes, occasional joint aching after activity, a knee that clicks when you go up stairs. This is actually the best time to start chiropractic care for arthritis. Early intervention can significantly slow progression and keep you functional for decades.
In your 60s and 70s, arthritis is more established. The stiffness lasts longer, the pain is more consistent, and certain activities are becoming harder. Chiropractic care at this stage focuses on maintaining the function you have, reducing pain, and preventing further decline. The combination of adjustments, exercises, and lifestyle modifications can keep you active and independent.
In your 80s and beyond, gentler techniques become even more important. Adjustments are lighter, exercises are modified for your abilities, and the focus is on maintaining independence—being able to dress yourself, walk without assistance, and continue daily activities.
Dr. Sorum modifies his approach based on your age, the severity of your arthritis, and your overall health. A 45-year-old with early knee arthritis gets different care than a 75-year-old with advanced spinal stenosis.
Why Chiropractic Over Just Medication
Here’s the thing about arthritis medication: it treats the symptom, not the problem. Anti-inflammatories reduce inflammation temporarily. Pain pills mask the pain temporarily. When the medication wears off, everything comes right back.
Chiropractic care actually improves how your joints function. It restores movement, reduces the mechanical causes of inflammation, and strengthens the structures supporting your joints. The benefits last between treatments and build over time.
That doesn’t mean you should stop taking your medication if your doctor prescribed it. Many of our patients use both medication for pain management and chiropractic care for functional improvement. But over time, as their joints function better and their pain decreases, many people naturally reduce their medication use. That’s a conversation to have with your prescribing doctor, but it happens regularly.
The other issue with long-term anti-inflammatory use is the side effects. NSAIDs can cause stomach problems, kidney issues, and cardiovascular risks when used daily for extended periods. Chiropractic care has essentially no serious side effects when performed by an experienced practitioner.
Arthritis Management Near Lexington Parkway
If you’re dealing with arthritis in St. Paul, our office at 506 N. Lexington Parkway is easy to get to. We understand that when your joints hurt, the last thing you want is a long drive across town.
Dr. Sorum has been helping arthritis patients in the Twin Cities since 2001. He understands this condition, knows what works, and is honest about what he can and can’t do. He’s not going to tell you he can cure your arthritis—nobody can. But he can absolutely help you hurt less, move better, and maintain your independence.
Combined with Joy Vang’s therapeutic massage for muscle tension and our wellness care programs for long-term maintenance, you get comprehensive arthritis management that addresses the full picture.
Don’t Just Accept the Pain
Arthritis is common. But “common” doesn’t mean you have to just live with it and slowly give up the activities you enjoy. Effective treatment exists, and it doesn’t have to involve surgery or daily medication.
If you’ve been told your joint pain is “just arthritis” and there’s nothing to do about it, that’s not the full story. Chiropractic care can make a real difference in how you feel and how you function.
Dealing with arthritis pain? Call Twin Cities Chiropractic at 651-224-1921. Dr. Sorum provides gentle, effective arthritis treatment at 506 N. Lexington Parkway in St. Paul. 20+ years helping patients move better and live better with arthritis. Call today or book online.
Gentle chiropractic care for arthritis and joint pain in St. Paul. Dr. Sorum helps reduce stiffness, improve mobility and manage pain naturally. Call 651-224-1921.