Christopher EllisCEO Dynamic Physio Therapy

Your Gut Can Cause Joint Pain

15 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief monologue, physical therapist-turned-functional-medicine practitioner Christopher Ellis reflects on his evolving understanding of joint pain. He explains that while traditional PT thinking attributes pain to mechanical issues—such as abnormal loading or foot mechanics—he discovered that gut health can also be a source of joint discomfort. Ellis emphasizes that joint pain may stem from purely mechanical factors, purely gut-related factors, or a combination of both, and that this integrative view is the most common scenario he encounters in his practice.

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We can't fix everybody, right? And that always bothered me because there are some people, it's like they've got joint pain. And, you know, as a PT, you think very mechanical, okay? You're loading it too much, your foot's doing something funny that's loading your knee weird. But sometimes it's not that. Sometimes it's coming from a gut. Like, that was one of the big revelations for me when I got into functional medicine. It's like, oh, your gut can cause joint pain? So it certainly could be just mechanical. It certainly could be just, you know, gut-related, and it can definitely be both. And that's what I find most often.