When you have osteoarthritis, you are often also told by your doctor that you have bone spurs in your joints. What is the relationship between bone spurs and osteoarthritis? Can I take calcium supplements if I have spurs? Can exercise “wear out” bone spurs? To find out what bone spurs are, it helps us to better understand and care for our joints.
Is joint pain caused by bone spurs?
Just as hair turns gray and teeth fall out as we get older, bones also age with the passage of time. When bones age to a certain extent, they become osteoporotic, and when joints age, they become osteoarthritic, also known as degenerative joint disease.
The aging of joints starts with cartilage. When the body is active, natural wear and tear occurs on the cartilage surfaces of two adjacent joints, but the cartilage is quickly regenerated through metabolism. For middle-aged and elderly people, however, cartilage regeneration slowly fails to keep up with wear as they age, and when cartilage is destroyed or even worn away, the underlying bone is exposed to inflammatory joint fluid, causing pain. Under the stimulation of inflammation, the edges of the bones will naturally proliferate in order to accommodate the stress changes that occur as the cartilage wears away, gradually forming a bone flap.
Professor Wang You, deputy director of the Department of Orthopedics at the Ninth People’s Hospital of Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, points out that the formation of bone spurs is actually a normal physiological response to aging or damage to the joints. Bone spurs do not mean that a thorn has grown in the joint, but rather, they are called “bone spurs” because of the shape of the bone bulge, which is wide at the base and thin at the tip, when viewed from the perspective of a flat X-ray.
The reason why people with osteoarthritis feel pain is not because they have been stabbed by a bone spur, but because the cartilage on the surface of the joint has gradually worn away, leading to synovitis. Although bone spurs are not the culprit of joint pain, they are an important sign of joint degeneration or osteoarthritis.
Can I still take calcium supplements if I have bone spurs?
Professor Wang You told reporters that many patients with osteoarthritis have the question, “Doctor, my bones are already enlarged, will calcium supplementation make the bone spurs grow faster?
In fact, such a concern is not necessary. Bone spurs are formed because of joint degeneration, not because of excessive calcium intake, and there is no relationship between the two. It is entirely possible to develop bone spurs even in patients with osteoporosis.
In middle-aged and elderly people, especially women, after menopause, the hormones in the body will drop significantly, which will accelerate the loss of calcium and gradually reduce the strength of the bones, and if calcium is not supplemented in time and osteoporosis prevention measures are taken, the incidence of fractures will increase greatly. Professor Wang You reminded that middle-aged and elderly people do not have to give up calcium because they are worried about growing bone spurs.
Exercise can “grind” off bone spurs?
It is also common for many middle-aged and elderly patients to think that they can wear out their bone spurs through exercise.
Professor Wang You reminds us that inappropriate or excessive exercise may aggravate the degeneration of joints and accelerate the occurrence of bone spurs.
Some studies have shown that people who exercised too much when they were young, such as athletes and heavy laborers, tend to grow bone spurs more easily than normal people because of the more severe wear and tear on their joints.
For middle-aged and older people, it is best to avoid all sports that aggravate joint strain, such as mountain climbing, ball games with high activity levels, stair climbing and sports that require deep squats.
Less strenuous exercise does not mean no exercise. Maintaining a certain amount of muscle strength has a protective effect on the joints, and proper exercise is also beneficial for middle-aged and elderly people to prevent a series of diseases such as osteoporosis.
Prof. Wang You suggests that middle-aged and elderly people should mainly exercise on flat ground, swimming, walking, practicing Badaunjin and cycling are all good choices. For the elderly who like to run, be sure to pay attention to the distance of running is not too long, and do not wear shoes with too hard soles to avoid joint injuries. After exercise, use warm water to rinse the knee joints. If conditions allow, hydrotherapy such as hot springs can be beneficial to the joint health of middle-aged and older adults.
Should I treat it?
Since bone spurs are a normal part of joint degeneration, they generally do not require special treatment, and you should not believe in special drugs that are not based on science, such as the so-called “ablation of bone spurs”.
For patients with osteoarthritis, physical therapy and medication can be used under the guidance of a doctor to improve symptoms. However, it is important to note that osteoarthritis is a sterile inflammatory disease, unlike the familiar bacterial inflammation, and does not require antibiotic treatment.
When there is structural damage to the joint or a bone spur due to a specific cause such as a joint deformity, you should follow medical advice and undergo the necessary surgical treatment as soon as possible.
Take care of your joints while you are still young
Bone spurs are not the preserve of the middle-aged and elderly. In recent years, osteoarthritis is occurring at a younger age. For young and middle-aged people, to prevent the early onset of bone spurs and osteoarthritis, they need to pay attention to the following three points.
First, to prevent joint injuries caused by sports.
Second, weight control, if too obese, for the joints, especially the knee joint, means more weight to bear. Over time, the joints will inevitably age earlier.
Third, we should pay attention to maintain the correct sitting, sleeping and standing posture in life. Especially people who spend a lot of time on the computer, must pay attention to the care of their cervical and lumbar spine.