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Over 100 different types of arthritis exist, but by far the most common are the "osteo" and the "rheumatoid" varieties. Both may be subject to influence by your subconscious through the use of visualization statements.

Visualization statements represent the specific language that your subconscious wants you to read back to it to help ease your pain. They're simple and are targeted directly at the main factors that could bring you relief.

You can obtain these statements by learning how to communicate directly with your own subconscious mind. The process is straightforward and can be done at home by working with a facilitator over the telephone. You you need no special skills and no previous experience in working with the subconscious.

Here's a recap of the two major forms of arthritis, and the role that your subconscious may be able to play to help bring relief:

Osteoarthritis

Arthritis literally means "joint inflammation." But oddly enough, the form of arthritis that is most common in the world--osteoarthritis--generally does not involve inflammation.

In a healthy joint, a spongy material called cartilage covers the ends of the bones so that they don't rub up against one another. In osteoarthrtitis, either due to a genetic cause, repeated overuse, or some other reason, the cartilage becomes less elastic over time. This makes it susceptible to damage and deterioration.

As the cartilage wears away, bones may rub together, the tendons and ligaments in the joint may become stiff, bone spurs may appear, and other abnormalities may occur. The result is that the joint becomes painful. Cartilage has no blood supply, and can be nourished only through movement. But pain reduces movement, making the problem worse.

Inflammation is generally not a problem in osteoarthritis, but permanent joint damage is. If the subconscious is brought in before permanent damage has occurred, visualizations may be able to help increase the flexibility of your cartilage and the surrounding tendons and ligaments. Even a slight increase in elasticity may be enough to alleviate some of the pain.

We have not yet worked with a participant who has osteoarthritis. But we have had good results working with back and extremity pain, which involves focusing the subconscious on increasing the elasticity of tendons and ligaments. If it has provided elasticity there, it may be able to do the same for cartilage.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Like osteoarthritis, the rheumatoid variety (called RA) involves a problem with cartilage--but it occurs for an entirely different reason.

In RA, your immune system mistakenly attacks the joints. It sends in white blood cells, which produce chemicals that cause inflammation. This swells the joint lining and wears down the cartilage, narrowing the space between the bones. As the cartilage wears away and the inflammation continues, the joint becomes swollen, tender, painful, and difficult to move.

While we have not yet worked directly with RA, we have worked with psoriatic arthritis pain, which produces joint inflammation in a way similar to RA. Visualizing that the immune T-cells are put into action only when the body is truly attacked by an outside invader seems to work for some cases of psoriatic arthritis, and may possibly work for rheumatoid arthritis.

Reducing the Pain Signal

Imbalances of the joints or the immune system such as the above are a major trigger of pain signals in arthritis. Putting these factors back in balance is thus a preventive measure, one that helps to keep the pain signal from being generated in the first place.

But an important part of your pain relief strategy also needs also to be to attempt to reduce the pain signal once it has been generated. This can be approached by focusing the subconscious on numerous chemical weak points (we call them leverage points) where it may be possible to use visualizations to reduce the pain signal.

If you can learn to engage your subconscious, you most likely will be able to identify which leverage points apply to you. You can then use visualization statements to give your subconscious the daily reinforcement it needs to possibly take the edge off your pain at those points.

Ben Plumb is CEO and President of The Visualization Group, Inc. The company's service is delivered by people like himself who personally suffered from years of chronic pain, and used the visualization method described in this article to obtain relief when nothing else worked.