By Dr. Sam Pegram Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is unlike osteoarthritis, which the latter is a result of mechanical wear and tear on your joints. Instead, Rheumatoid Arthritis is a chronic auto-immune disease characterized by the infiltration of inflammatory cells into the joint capsules. Those cells release enzymes that reduce the overall cartilage and primarily affect the smaller joints in your body, such as your wrists and hands.  Rheumatoid arthritis can spread to bigger joints in your body, like your elbows, ankles, and knees, but it typically doesn’t attack the largest joints in your body, like the ones in your back, for example.

By Rey Ximenes MD Eastern medicine is simply a term the western world has coined. Still, it typically refers to traditional medicine practices that derive from the rest of the world that look at the totality of the body, mind, and spirit rather than focus on a particular aspect of the body that is ailing.  Even in Australia, the Indigenous population has their own form of traditional medicine they use, which is a combination of healing practices and herbs to heal the body.  The great part about Eastern medicine is its holistic view. Where Western medicine has a reductionist approach to healing, Eastern