Just because someone is experiencing painful knees does not necessarily mean they have a knee problem!
Just because someone has painful knees does not mean they necessarily have a knee problem. You need to look for the root cause of the problem and treat that rather than treating the symptoms.
When there are painful structural problems, it is important to start at the foundations and work your way up. If the joints of the feet are misaligned this will result in misalignment of the joints in the rest of the body. It is this misalignment of the joints that will lead to foot pain, knee pain, hip pain, or even back pain.
If the joints in the feet are misaligned this will reslult in misalignment of the joints in the rest of the body
It is only by treating the cause rather than the symptoms that you can have long lasting change.
Our practitioners often say to their clients that they are not treating the symptoms, they are treating the cause of the problems. By realigning the joints we are treating the underlying cause and it is a side effect of the treatment that the symptoms are going away.
Everybody is different. Everybody has a different structure. Everybody has different subluxations of the joints. Therefore everybody will be tearing different muscles and tissues when they are incorrectly aligned. It is this tearing and straining that is causing the pain and the symptoms.
How do you know if the joints are out of alignment?
The quickest and easiest way to discover if the joints of the feet are out of position is with a weight bearing x-ray (standing up). Having a non-weight bearing x-ray will show if there are any breaks in the bones, but it is no use for determining if the joints are misaligned.
Usually pain comes when standing or performing activities. Therefore it makes sense to get an x-ray that shows the structure of the feet in a situation that mimics this. When an x-ray is taken in a standing position it will show the exact positions of the joints under stress.
It is also important to have someone look at the x-ray who understands alignment and structure. Radiographers spend all day taking hundreds of x-rays of every part of the body. The amount of knowledge they need is extraordinary. They carry out a vital and important role every day. However, it is unreasonable to expect them to understand the alignment of the foot the same way as someone who only looks at foot alignment understands it. So it is important to have someone analyse the x-rays who spends all day analysing foot x-rays.
Our Structural Practitoners are Trained to see if the Joints in the Feet are out of Position
Radiographers send a report with the x-rays to the referring doctor. The report is the radiographer’s opinion of what is wrong. Often the referring doctor only receives the radiographer’s report and relies on this. However, even if the doctor does receive the hard copy of the x-rays it is unreasonable to expect them to understand the alignment of the foot the way a structural practitioner does.
For this reason it is best to take x-rays to a structural podiatrist who can analyse them and identify if there is any misalignment of the joints.
