Prevention of pain in the arms, legs and back - is better than cure

Before you decide medical or surgical treatment for pain in joints and muscles, it might be an idea to look through the following:

1. Did you get enough sun on your cheeks and body during the last month or three? Or do you have otherwise secured your vitamin D level?

Vitamin D is produced by the Sun on cholesterol in your skin, especially around the eyes and in the face, maybe even more than in the rest of the body. 1 day with good sun-exposure provides 250 micrograms of vitamin D. Normal dosage in vitamin pills is 10 micrograms. You can get extra vitamin D in vitamin pills or special pills with 10, 25 or 35 micrograms. You can also take vitamin-D-pearls with vitamin D3 in easily absorbed fat phase. Or you can take a spoonful old-fashioned cod liver oil. My experience is that the latter works best, and the tablets least. It is probably the accompanying fats that make the difference. Your tastebuds can help you on your way. If you are cream-hungry, there is a good chance that you are low in vitamin D, and will benefit from supplementing. It is said that at least half of the Danes are short of vitamin D, and the shortage is more pronounced the closer you come to the North Pole. If you have enough vitamin D, or if the cod liver oil is too old, it tastes bad. That is perhaps the last taste you can remember from childhood, and which frightens the adults from offering this excellent product to their children.

The Danish Board of Health recommends 10 micrograms vitamin D per. adult a day. Endocrinologists go further up. There used to be lots of side effects of high vitamin D doses in cattle, but it would be from vitamin D2, and not D3 that is used today. Use your tastebuds. If it seems wrong, tastes wrong or feels wrong, then restrict the intake and proceed to the next point on the list.

2. Did you get enough calcium recently? It is not enough to have been breast-fed for 3 months as a baby. When vitamin D levels are generally low, there is a need for the vitamin D tool = calcium, to be present in sufficient quantities freely available. Calcium goes to rest where it is not disturbed, such as on not-brushed teeth, or in the coronary artery and other arteries that have not been exercised enough. It is the passive calcium which lies there. The active calcium is guided around the body by vitamin D, just like sugar is controlled by insulin. Calcium is of high importance for bones and connective tissue, and calcium is particularly important for muscle function. The striated (normal) muscle consists of fibres that move over each other, and are kept in place by a calcium-molecule like a burr, that holds the fibres in place in the desired length. My assumption is that when calcium is low, the muscles can not keep the tension, followed by cramp tendency and a general weakness. The limp muscles affect the joints and bones controlled by the muscles, ending up with a hypermobility, and poor control of the joints, followed by distortions and damaging the joints over time. The Danish National Board of Health has since war-time recommended a pint of milk per nose per day, or equivalent milk products, or alternatives containing calcium. Drinking water often contains calcium in Denmark, but not enough to provide enough calcium, unless you drink 5-10 litres of water daily, and this is dangerous. So you have to figure out how to get your calcium in another way. Dairy products are the easiest way. If milk does not agree with you, the second best option currently would be calcium tablets. They need not be expensive. If you need calcium, you'll absorb calcium if you get it into your stomach. The absorption can be facilitated. But again: Use your tastebuds, they are smart.

3. If you have given birth to many children and have worn your body down, and perhaps eaten poorly for years, you may be lacking other minerals and vitamins. A mix-vitamin pill may help you on your way. Most of them contain what is often missing. This is selenium, silicon and magnesium. Many other minerals and vitamins can surely be missing, but these are, according to my experience, the most important.

4. If you've done all this for years and still have pain in bones and joints, or heal too slowly after injury or fracture, then you may have some habits that bind the calcium, so the calcium can not be controlled by the vitamin D. It may be a daily cola with phosphoric acid that binds calcium in the intestine, letting it drop into the toilet instead of being absorbed. Coffee and tea can do the same, but not so intensely. Coffee and tea seem to bind the calcium from the milk you pour into it, but do not bind calcium the rest of the day. Chocolate can also bind the calcium. If you eat fat chocolate daily, the calcium you consume may be bound to stay in the intestines and be excreted without being absorbed. Fat is running along the intestinal wall all the way down, and liposoluble stuff like chocolate goes down into the fat. It forms probably a muff all the way down through the gut. Maybe the problem is biggest in children whose gut is shorter than the adult gut.

I have material indicating that chocolate intake every day is linked with pain and wrong position of the musculoskeletal system. Chocolate 1-3 times a week does not seem to do anything. It must be further explored. But if you have problems with joints, and eat chocolate every day, it's an easy test to stop with the daily consumption and simply eat chocolate only a few times a week for 2 weeks and see if it helps. It can never be as risky as many of the traditional treatments for musculoskeletal discomfort. Try it yourself.

The problem here is that we are built to eat sweet (mother's milk is very sweet), and we are looking for the sweet taste in our diet while growing up.

5. If you have read until now without obtaining any good idea, you may have made auto-immune substances by toiling. We are built to handle quite incredible amounts of toil, but if we are overtaxed repeatedly, we smash our tissues and cells, letting cell mass into the bloodstream. This mass the body may happen to regard as an enemy to be fought. We are built to live over 100 years, so the fight should turn into peace again, but nobody knows how. Maybe you should go back to section 1 with D-vitamin. Vitamin D is probably one of the most effective "hormones" in the body, even more effective than sexual hormones that also are made out of cholesterol.

6. If you have come to this point without being helped, I can not help you. You must ponder the information in section 1-5, eventually get your vitamin-D measured in a blood test at your practitioner. Or you can otherwise go to the doctor, and make the exercises and take the medicine you agree upon.

With kind regards from Helga

References and background are detailed in the hypothesis of www.helga.in The-back-bone-growing-disease-model.