Thursday, September 24, 2015

Arthritis

I have been having pain in my right shoulder, hand, and wrist for some months, and I assumed it was strokr related.  My physical therapist says the shoulder pain is a stiff deltoid muscle, and she is working on loosening it, and gave me some exercises to do.  But the pain in the fingers and wrist she thought was arthritis, and my doctor confirmed this, pointing to Heberden's nodes in my right hand.

I suspect this pain plays some part in difficulty regaining my touch typing skills.

UPDATE: A reader mentioned that there is research showing a connection between vitamin K deficiency and osteoarthritis.  This study:
The PRs for OA, osteophytes, and JSN and adjusted mean number of joints with all 3 features in the hand decreased significantly with increasing plasma phylloquinone levels (P ≤ 0.03 for all). For example, as plasma phylloquinone levels rose, the PR for hand OA decreased from 1.0 to 0.7 (P = 0.005). For the knee, only the PR for osteophytes and the adjusted mean number of knee joints with osteophytes decreased significantly with increasing plasma phylloquinone levels (PR decreased from 1.0 to 0.6, P = 0.01).
and:
Results: This ancillary study had 378 participants (193 in vitamin K arm, 185 in placebo arm). There were no effects of randomisation to vitamin K for radiographic osteoarthritis outcomes. Those with insufficient vitamin K at baseline who attained sufficient concentrations at follow-up had trends towards 47% less joint space narrowing (p = 0.02).
 and many others.  One problem is that vitamin K increases blood clotting, and I am on warfarin to reduce clotting as a stroke preventative.  I need to talk to the anti-coagulation clinic before I increase consumption of green leafy vegetables (which I hate, so the arthritis is no surprise).
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3 comments:

  1. jdegeSeptember 24, 2015 at 12:03 PM

    Osteoarthritis is a disease of inappropriate calcium deposition in the soft tissues.

    There are a couple of hormones that control calcium deposition - osteocalcin, which pulls calcium into bones and teeth, and matrix gla protein, which acts to remove calcium from soft tissues.

    Both of these are created through the action of vitamins A and D, but become active only when carboxylated by vitamin K2. And K2 is almost absent in the modern diet. It's present in butter and eggs, but only when the cows or chickens have been eating green plants.

    So my first thought when I read your post was to look to see if there were any studies linking osteoarthritis to K2 deficiencies. And what do you know, yes, there have been:

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16572460

    For a more complete explanation:

    http://www.amazon.com/Vitamin-K2-Calcium-Paradox-Little-Known/dp/0062320041


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  2. PaulSeptember 25, 2015 at 6:20 AM

    1) A study examining long term warfarin use and its effect on bone mineralization would be interesting.
    3) The "solution" to your increased consumption of green leafy vegetables would be to increase your warfarin dose to maintain your INR target result. This would possibly negate the effect for which you are hoping.
    3) You could look into one of the newer anticoagulants that do not affect vitamin K clotting factors, such as Eliquis, Pradaxa, or Xarelto. You should discuss this with your doctor.

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  3. KCSteveSeptember 26, 2015 at 6:31 PM

    There was a study way back around about 1993 on live culture yogurt and arthritis. Basically, eating live culture yogurt helps keep it from developing and helps with the symptoms. I eat one little yogurt every day and my bad knees don't really bother me. If I forget for a week or so they start to bother me.

    Give it a try for a couple of weeks. Even if it doesn't help, the yogurt is a nice snack.

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