This concentrates the shock waves of pressure inherent in so many Yoga classes forms of action, focuses them on the cartilage, and promotes even more degeneration.
This Yoga classes process also produces sufficiently great pressures on the bones that they react, as bones must, by laying down new bone substance in the areas of greatest stress. The production of osteophytes may be the response of bone to the eccentric stresses brought about by the degenerative process. Unfortunately, just as the cartilage is getting thin, the underlying bone is changing shape, altering still further the patterns of stress for which the joint was originally so well adapted.
There is more to learn about osteoarthritis. It was recently shown that brief stimulation winds up neurons inside the joint and at the spinal cord and brain, making them more reactive to future stimuli. In addition, peripheral and central sensitization, in effect, make a person feel greater pain from the same cause.14 Further, the stimulated pain fibers in the joint actually give off substances that attack cartilage.
