What is Facet Disease and How Can You Find Relief?

What is a facet joint? And what can you do if yours are causing pain? That's what we're going to talk about today, facet joints, I want you to think of it very simply. They are the little knuckles of your spine. They allow you to move and be flexible and bend and twist. Now, just like a knuckle, they can also become inflamed or arthritic and cause pain. So we're gonna break that down a little bit and give you some action steps if your facet joints have been bothering you so you can feel better and find relief starting today. So when we look at the spine, that is a bone. That is a bone. And the disc resides in between the area you see there, where there is blue. That is one of the surfaces that make up the facet joint. A full facet joint is right here. So you can see that move and slide right where my fingers are right there. You can see that that joint can move and slide. And again, that's the disc in between. So they're behind the disc. These bones sit in you just like this, your vertebra. You can see that the spinal cord goes down the backside there, and the nerves come out the holes directly in front of the facet joints. So the facet joints move and they allow us to do all these wonderful things in life. But just like a knuckle, if you've seen somebody who has, let's say, rheumatoid arthritis, this has been an extreme example of it. You can see a knuckle become exceedingly large and it's painful, it's hot, it's sensitive. This. The same thing can happen with facets. We normally call that facet disease or facet syndrome. And that's when a facet becomes larger over time, the cartilage and the bone start to build up around it, and it becomes large and harder to move. Now, the challenge with that for many people is that when that becomes larger, it takes up space and the nerve is directly in front. So there are times when a facet joint becomes so arthritic, it. It actually presses into the space where the nerve is supposed to travel out. That can cause pain along that nerve, pain down the arm, pain down the leg, or around the chest. But most commonly, facet syndrome is characterized by pain right there, right where that knuckle is, right where that facet is on your spine is right where the pain resides. So what are some of the things you can do if you've suffered from something like this? Some of the things that are recommended Typically from medical doctors, could be medications or injections. Those are designed to relieve the pain, but they don't really help necessarily the healing process long term. So what we do as chiropractors is get motion into those joints, safe and controlled motion. Motion is one of the best things you can do to get a joint moving appropriately and decrease the pain. It doesn't mean you force it through a painful motion, but you, you need to engage with that. You need to be able to improve the movement of the facet joint. That helps get nutrients and blood to the area, that helps flush out the inflammatory meteors and ultimately helps it to get to feel better, which is what the goal is. So if you have pain on the back of your neck, in your low back, in your mid back, and it's very centralized, meaning you could almost put a finger on it quite often that's indicative of facet disease or facet syndrome. Basically your facet is inflamed and it hurts. And what the research has shown time and time again is motion. Safe and controlled motion is one of the best things you can do for that. And that's where a chiropractic adjustment comes into play. Additionally, working the soft tissue around that can also be very important. The muscles can tighten up and spasm around the painful area. So, so getting everything to be much more balanced and to decrease the stress and spasm in the area can be the first steps to relief. So that is a few tips regarding facet disease or facet syndrome. If you have any comments, fire them off down below and I'll be sure to answer them shortly. I hope you have a great day. Bye bye.