I'm going to clearly tell you where you are in the four stages of hip posterior arthritis.
Now, the staging system used by the medical field at large tells us the severity of hip
arthritis in an individual so that mainly surgeons can know what to do as far as treatment
goes.
And so I've drawn some pictures here of the stages.
I'm going to walk you through it.
I'm also going to show you on my skeleton here what's going on with the hip joint so
that you might understand where you are and figure out what treatment you need.
Now, there are some flaws to the staging system.
Now, going to explain more about that in the second half of this video.
So let's watch through this part and then I want you to pay attention to the flaws in
a solution that I actually provide you with.
So that you might have a better chance of healing your hip arthritis naturally, so that
you can avoid surgery.
So the first stage is technically stage zero.
There's really five stages if you count stage zero.
But this is never talked about because this is a healthy hip.
This is when you're younger and you never even think about your hip.
You can do whatever you want.
You're a very happy person in regards to your hip joint.
There's plenty of space in the joints and there's nothing wrong going on.
Now, in stage one, here's where you begin to have some sort of irritation, possibly
even a little bit of damage to the cartilage surfaces.
And what I've drawn here, just to orient you.
Here's the ball on this side and then here's the socket and the redness might happen on
the socket side or on the ball side.
It just depends on which part breaks down first, depending on how much over compression
or how much or pressure you're putting through the joints.
Now, in stage one, what you'll feel is usually a little bit of hip pain and it tends to be
right in the front of the hip, like where your thigh meets your body, where your leg
folds against your body right here.
That's where people get hit.
Pain related to hip arthritis.
That's the most common site.
Now, if you have pain on the outer side of your hip over here, that tends to be more
related to hip bursitis or hip tendinitis or eye t bone problems, TEFL issues.
There's other conditions, but those are also related because those other conditions share
the same problem as hip.
Also arthritis, but true hip arthritis pain or hip joint pain technically is right here
in the front of the hip.
So if you're in stage one, like I said, you're going to have pain about right here in the
front of your hip joint where the ball starts to move up against the edge of the socket.
So it usually happens when you bend forward or when you bring your knee towards your chest.
It feels like it feels like there's some stiffness there.
You might begin to get a bit of stiffness here and there if you've been sitting for
a long time or if you wake up in the morning, you have moved all night and you're going
to get up, you might get some pain or discomfort in that area.
But now when it comes to stage one here, you're usually not going to be bad enough that you
need to go to the doctor.
People in this stage usually can just deal with it.
Maybe they'll take a pain medication over the counter pain medication and they'll be
just fine.
They're still generally happy because they can do everything they want to do.
They just do it at times.
Now, if the root problem does not get addressed and the problem persists over time, for some
people, that's weeks.
For some people it's months.
For some it's years.
They'll progress into stage two here.
Now, in stage two usually begin to have even more joint irritation, possibly damage to
the cartilage, and usually begin to sit on both sides of the hip joint.
It could be on the ball side or on the socket side.
It may still just be on one side.
It progresses differently in individuals differently.
At this point, though, you're usually feeling more consistent stiffness in the mornings,
or if you've been sitting for a long time, or you're also feeling more consistent pain
in the front of the hip.
And it may even bother you more as the day goes on and hurts you at nights like when
you're trying to fall asleep, it might hurt then and not let you fall asleep, or it might
wake you up in the middle of sleep because of the position that you're in and because
it's been irritated, it's it's going to throb and hurt potentially.
Now on an X-ray, finding they'll be able to show some some changes on the surfaces of
the ball and on the surface of the socket.
And that's when the doctor will usually be able to tell you, you have stage two hip arthritis,
or they usually don't tell you the stage.
They will speak in that language on the medical side amongst doctors.
They'll both communicate that way.
The radiologist, the person that interprets the X-ray will write that on the X-ray, just
in case you're looking at your extra results or MRI.
But what the doctor will tell you in this moment, because usually people in stage two,
that's the first stage where they're actually seeking medical attention or they're going
to the doctor because the pain is getting bad now.
So what the doctor will tell you is you have hip arthritis, but it's mild.
It's not bad right now.
That's what they usually say.
And you're not a candidate for surgery yet for any sort of of like hip replacement surgery,
because that's the surgery.
But what they'll say is, at this point, you need to make sure that you're doing some sort
of regular exercise.
They might make weight loss recommendations.
They'll probably prescribe you a pain medication or even inject your hip with a pain medication
to help you with the pain.
And that the discomfort, the inflammation that you're feeling from this injury at this
point.
Now, some people get better.
Some people just delay the problem like they they don't treat the root problem.
So it progresses even more.
Of course, you're you're not the happiest here, but people are still usually very active
at this point.
But if it progresses into stage three now, the irritation is taking up a significant
portion of the joint surface.
And notice I said irritation because there's other things happening, like you might get
bone spurs, which is just thickening of the bone around usually the ends of the socket
right here, you might get lumps developing or holes developing like like divots developing
on the ball side of the joint.
Also on the socket side of the joints, it begins to change the joints slightly.
If it goes on long enough, it worsens and you get this happened.
But notice the other thing that I drew here, there's less joint space between the ball
in the socket compared to these in these drawings in stage two, one and zero over here.
So because of that less joint space, you're getting compression in the joints.
But with the doctors will tell you is that you have a loss of cartilage or they'll also
say that your hip joint is becoming bone on bone or that it already is bone on bone.
And there's usually a point where it's worse and where the X-ray can show that there's
more problems happening.
Now, at this point, people are very unhappy.
They're not comfortable, they're not sleeping well.
They're not able to be on their feet as long as you want.
Walking is becoming painful.
They may even begin to limp when they're walking around and feel like they need a cane or a
walker in order to get around
now, in stage three at the hip joint, you begin to get some stiffness, especially going
upwards in this direction as you come up, because the the ball is compressed into the
socket more.
It's just a little more grinding in the hip.
Some people actually do report grinding in the hip and the motion itself just feels more
difficult to do than your other hip, which might come up a lot easier.
And it's not just bringing the knee up that happens in the hip.
You also can go backwards, outwards and there's rotation that happens at the hip joint.
All of those motions become affected as far as like the quality of motion.
But you might even begin to get some range of motion limitations, like you can't bring
your knee up as high as the other side, or you can move your leg outwards as much as
the other side.
There's little limitations that begin to happen, and it's because that ball is being shoved
up into the socket harder because of muscle imbalances.
The problem and it needs to be uncompressed.
More on that in just a minute
in stage four.
This is where it's the most severe.
The entire surfaces of the ball are compressed into the socket.
There's no more joint space.
There's lots of bone spurs.
There's lots of irritation happening.
This person is in severe pain.
They're usually desperate and they cannot walk very far.
If they can walk at all, they're usually using a cane or a walker to get around.
And at this point, the doctor is just saying, you need surgery.
We need to replace the hip joint.
If we can cut off the ball and replace the socket side as well and replace the ball,
then we can take the arthritis away instantly and replace it with artificial parts and you'll
no longer have hip arthritis.
That sounds great.
And for somebody in phase in stage four, that's an appropriate treatment because it's probably
a little too far beyond helping.
It's too far gone now.
That's the staging system.
And like I said, just to review, because I'm not sure I made this point clearly in stage
two is where people go to the doctor.
It's usually in stage three.
The doctors start making their recommendation to have a hip replacement surgery, and if
you make it to stage four before having the replacement surgery, because many people have
to here, you're going to almost certainly have a hip replacement if you get this far.
Now, let's talk about some flaws of the staging system.
The first floor is that the assumption underlying this staging system is that you can only move
in this direction and that once you have a little bit of arthritis in your joints, that
you're only going to get more and more and more as time goes on because you get arthritis
as you age.
That's the underlying thinking and there's no turning back that once you start going
this way, it's just going to get worse and worse over time.
This is what leads doctors to say things like, Well, you know, you're here in stage two right
now, maybe a year, maybe five years, if you're lucky, ten, but you're going to have insulin.
You need a hip replacement.
They'll say things like that because that's the thinking that they have, the belief that
they have, that it just gets worse over time.
The second underlying assumption here that I think is a huge flaw that is in the staging
system here that's used to figure out the severity of hip arthritis, is that once you
have decreased joint space in the hip joint, the assumption is that the cartilage is gone
and this is
fed into even more because doctors will say things like your hip joint is bone on bone,
which gives you the assumption that there's no cartilage left.
Some might even tell you there is no cartilage left.
And they're making that assumption based on the X-ray image of the ball and socket joint
being compressed like that, being there being no space.
They're assuming that there's no cartilage there.
But what you need to know is that there is growing research showing that even though
you have changes on an X-ray or an MRI, they've done this in knee joints.
They did this in rotator cuff, in the shoulder and in discs in the spine.
We've yet to research it in hips for hip arthritis.
There just isn't research out there, which doesn't mean that's not possible.
Just we don't know yet.
But I can tell you from experience in patients that treated who are at this stage because
when they're here, I'm usually telling them you need to go to the doctor and probably
get a hip joint replacement.
But when they're here or in these stages here, it's possible to uncompressed to decompress
the hip joint.
There's ways to do that allow the cartilage to heal and move in this direction and allow
you to get back to being healthy, active, mobile again and skip having hip joint replacements.
Let me explain more about what I mean here with decompressing the hip joints.
If you have hip arthritis, chances are you have a muscle imbalance where the muscles
on the front side of the hip joint, the hip flexors and even the thigh muscles down the
front of the thigh are over dominant or too strong, relatively too strong to the muscles
in the back of the hip, usually the muscles of the butt muscles because of that, those
hip flexors in the front, they're in a great position to pull the ball up into the socket
and even forward a bit.
And that's where you get that extra compression in the hip joints.
And over time, with every step you take in all those activities that you're doing, exercising,
yard work, chores, everything, you're just rubbing the ball and socket joint excessively.
But if you can decompress that joint by creating a balance between the muscles in the front
and the back of the hip, then you can move the ball into the proper position in the socket
and normalize the pressures in the hip joints, which will allow the cartilage to heal and
allow you to be normal again eventually, as long as it's not too far gone like we talked
about for stage four.
Now, I've developed a system of phases here, not stages for get stages for a second phase.
This is what I'm talking about.
And here we have phase one, two, three and four.
And let me just explain this a little differently.
Phase one is when you're very irritated because it is possible for you to be in stage two
where you're barely getting some mild hip arthritis, but it hurts a lot and you can't
walk very well.
But the doctor's telling you your hip looks okay.
It's not a surgical case.
You just need to do some treatments to get it to calm down and you'll be all right.
But you might be thinking this is severe.
Cut me open.
Let's replace the joint.
I want to live more happy about my hip.
I want this to not hurt.
But if you're very irritated like that and your hip actually looks okay on the X-rays,
then you're in phase one and it just needs to not be so irritated.
You can do a treatment that gets the pressure off the joint and get it to calm down.
Then your cartilage can begin to heal that.
When you're in phase two, you usually have full range of motion again, and you're able
to get the muscle imbalance you're starting to address.
Are you able to get the muscles stronger in the back?
Then you can begin to get the ball into the right position and decompress the joint.
In stage three, you're really getting the muscles even stronger and you're able to tolerate
a lot more and feeling tremendously better.
Normal.
Even now, Stage four, you're getting the muscles all stronger together so that you can do whatever
the heck you want, lift weights, run even in some cases, be able to jog, be able to
go hiking, going through these phases rather than stages is important so that you can calm
your hip down regardless of what your doctor told you the stage that you're in.
But if you think about the phase that you're in, which is now research is something that
I'm that I have here that I've developed and I have available for you, that you can have
a better idea of what you should be doing treatment wise and what you can expect as
far as improvement.
These phases that I've developed here are available in our Hip Arthritis Recovery Program,
which you can learn more about through a link in the description below.
Here, our Hip Arthritis Recovery Program is a comprehensive program that has my treatment
approach that I use to help our patients here in the clinic, all comprehensively put into
the program in over 30 videos that can help you solve your hip arthritis problem to the
point where you can get back to being active and then you can get back to feeling normal
again as long as you're not in stage four, which I talk about in the program.
If you're there, it's it's usually that you have hip joint locking your hip can move very
well and it has been like that for a long time.
I tell you all the details in the program.
But if you're here in stage three, you may have had an X-ray that shows that you're in
stage two or stage three.
Then you have an excellent chance at healing through the right phases despite being in
one of these stages.
I want to be clear about this, there's no research for this yet.
If there is any out there that maybe I don't know about, it's not much research.
It's tiny.
And
that that does not mean that this doesn't work yet.
One of the objections that I get from other health care professionals about how we heal
hip arthritis is that there's no medical evidence, medical research.
But just because there's none out there doesn't mean that this doesn't work.
I have tons of patient testimonials of patients that have gotten better and skipped surgery.
They were on the schedule to have surgery and they canceled the surgery because they've
been improving so much.
Going through our treatment approach.
Now we just are in the in the Stone Age really when it comes to medical research.
Most of the medical research out there is focused on surgical procedures and the implants
that are used, artificial parts that are used to do the replacement, the the the medications,
the way that they're doing the surgery, all the tools that they use.
That's what's being researched and not preventing the surgery to begin with.
So if you're out there wondering if you can heal your hip arthritis, naturally, chances
are you can go check out that hip arthritis recovery program to learn more.
If you want to see more videos about hip arthritis that we have here at our YouTube channel,
I've also put a link down there for our Hip Arthritis Help playlist.
Go check that out too.
Hey, thanks so much for watching.
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Thanks so much.
I'll see you in the next video.
Bye!