Arthritis Through a Quantum Lens: Reframing Joint Pain as a Message, Not a Malfunction
An essay on this month’s Community Conversation. Join the LIVE Masterclass TOMORROW, 6/25/25. Become a founding member to access this recording (available in 72 hr) & all past Masterclass recordings!
We’ve all heard the story. If you live with joint pain, arthritis, or an “autoimmune diagnosis”, you’ve likely been told: “Your body is attacking itself.” This has become the dominant narrative in Western medicine — that arthritis is a war within the body, the immune system turning traitor, causing chronic inflammation and tissue damage.
It’s a story that sounds scientific. It’s repeated by doctors, reinforced by pharmaceutical ads, whispered in support groups. And like so many others, I believed it.
From my teens onward, I lived under this story. The pain in my wrist joints was a constant companion since about the age of 14-15. it appeared seemingly overnight and remained for the next 25 years or so — confusing, frustrating, and limiting. I wrote extensively about this here. Doctors offered explanations that only deepened my disconnection: “It’s just your immune system gone rogue. It’s Rheumatoid Arthritis, an autoimmune disease. We’ll try to manage it. You’ll have to limit your piano playing. Well, your grandma has it, your aunt on your dad’s side died a painful death with it. It’s genetic.”
And so I lived in a kind of quiet fear. Fear of my body. Fear of movement. Fear that things would only get worse with age. I didn’t realize it at the time. But yes, fear. What a powerful force for nothing good!
Then, something shifted. Through years of study in quantum biology, circadian rhythm, and nervous system healing, I began to see things differently. I learned that cells are not simply biochemical machines — they are sensitive, living systems that rely on light, water, and rhythm. I learned that inflammation is not a random enemy, but an intelligent response to imbalance. And I discovered that much of the pain in my body was driven not by immune chaos, but by chronic dehydration and retained primitive reflexes — patterns of tension wired into my nervous system since childhood.
The day this clicked — when I truly understood that my body wasn’t attacking me, but asking for help — I can honestly say: I was reborn.
In this essay, I want to share that new story. A story where arthritis and joint pain are not battles to be fought, but signals to be understood. Where healing begins not with fear and force, but with hydration, rhythm, and trust in the body’s wisdom.
The Conventional Narrative of Arthritis - Manage the Damage
In the conventional Western model, arthritis is often framed as an autoimmune disease — an internal war. Doctors tell us that for reasons not entirely understood, the immune system begins to attack the body’s own tissues. The synovial membranes of the joints become inflamed, cartilage begins to erode, stiffness and swelling set in.
In alternative and functional medicine circles the “plot thickens” and we throw around terms like mold toxicity, parasites, heavy metal poisoning (vaccine injuries, tick bites, exposure to nasty chemicals in massive doses, etc.).
Either way we’re left with medications and horrid detoxification protocols that cost a lot of money and don’t really help. Pain may diminish. For a while. But we’re spinning our wheels wondering what the next bio-hack will be and how much it will cost.
The underlying message: your body is broken, your immune system has gone haywire, and there is little you can do except manage the damage.
This narrative comes with a host of implications:
Inflammation is the enemy.
The immune system is unpredictable and dangerous.
Your body cannot be trusted.
Suppressing symptoms is the best we can do.
As a result, most treatment plans focus on reducing inflammation through pharmaceuticals: corticosteroids, NSAIDs, DMARDs (disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs), biologics designed to block inflammatory signals, hefty supplement protocols for detoxing mold/parasites/heavy metals/etc., and ridiculously limiting diets that turn daily pleasures (like eating out, family gatherings, or simply enjoying a meal!, etc.) into dreaded nightmares. While these interventions and approaches may reduce symptoms temporarily, they rarely address the root causes of why inflammation arises in the first place.
What’s more, this narrative leaves patients with an emotional burden:
A sense of betrayal — as if their own body is fighting against them.
Fear of worsening symptoms with age.
Disconnection from natural movement, touch, and even joy in their body.
A passive role in their healing journey — waiting for science or medicine to “fix” the problem.
I know this because I lived it. For years, I organized my life around the fear of triggering more joint pain. I followed the protocols but saw little lasting change. And beneath it all, a quiet grief set in — the belief that my body was broken beyond repair.
But this story is incomplete. It overlooks the body’s intelligence, the possibility of deeper root causes, and the ways we can partner with our biology — rather than suppress it — to heal.
A Quantum View of the Body
One of the great shifts in my healing journey came when I encountered the field of quantum biology — a lens that views the body not just as a biochemical machine, but as a dynamic, living field of energy, light, and information. Before I go any further, this is a phenomenal resource for all things Applied Quantum Biology - Check it out!
In the conventional model, we often think of the body in mechanical terms: joints as hinges, bones as beams, tissues as parts to repair or replace. But this reductionist view leaves out something vital — the reality that every cell in our body is an energetic system. This includes bone and cartilage and tendon cells!
At the quantum level, biological processes are guided by light, electromagnetic fields, water structure, and rhythmic patterns. Our cells rely on coherence — the harmonious flow of energy and information — to maintain health and function.
In this framework, the body isn’t malfunctioning when inflammation arises. It’s responding to a breakdown in coherence, a breakdown in information transfer — often caused by a mismatch between what the body needs (light, water, rhythm, safety) and what modern life provides (artificial light, poor hydration, chronic stress and lack of movement).
Some key principles of quantum biology that inform this view include:
Light is life. Our cells use light (especially from the sun) to charge water, fuel mitochondria, and regulate circadian rhythms. I wrote about this here, here and here.
Water is structured. Inside healthy tissues, water exists not just as a liquid, but as a gel-like, structured phase that supports joint function and cellular communication. You can read more here.
Movement is medicine. Gentle, rhythmic movement helps hydrate fascia, clear lymph, and restore nervous system balance. You can go here for a brief explanation of rhythmic movement training as well as a centralized repository of blog posts and podcasts episodes where I talk about this amazing tool.
Safety is essential. The nervous system must feel safe to allow healing, repair, and relaxation of chronic tension patterns. I go into this a lot in the podcast episodes I’ve been a guest on. Here’s a repository of them.
Seen through this lens, inflammation in arthritis is not random, nor is it an enemy to fight. It is a signal — the body’s attempt to restore balance in the face of chronic stressors and missing inputs.
This understanding opened a new path for me — one grounded not in fear of my immune system, but in curiosity about what my body truly needed to heal.
Ready to change your relationship with pain?
I help clients in the middle of a healing crisis move from survival mode to true ease — using the same tools that transformed my own journey (what this post is all about!). If you’re ready to explore how this work could support you, book a free discovery call here. I’d love to meet you and help you take the first step toward lasting relief.
Chronic Dehydration as a Root Cause
One of the most surprising discoveries on my healing journey was the role of chronic dehydration — not in the superficial “drink more water” sense, but at the deep, cellular level where water is structured and vital to joint health.
Most of us think of dehydration as an occasional state: you forget your water bottle on a hot day, you feel thirsty. But in truth, many of us live in a constant state of low-grade chronic dehydration — one that isn’t resolved by simply drinking more water. Like Dr. Batmangelidgj says: by the time you “feel thirsty” you’re in full-blown, chronic dehydration. Thirst is not a reliable indicator of water needs. In fact, the true, early indicators of dehydration are extreme fatigue, feeling flushed, irritability, anxiety and irrational fears, low libido, depression, cravings for unhealthy beverages (e.g. alcohol). (Adapted from ABC of Asthma, Allergies and Lupus, by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj).
Here’s why:
Water inside the body, especially in connective tissues like fascia and joints, doesn’t exist as plain liquid. It forms what scientists call exclusion zone (EZ) water — a gel-like, structured 4th phase of water that supports electrical conductivity, nutrient and information flow, and joint lubrication. This structured water is built not only from the water we drink, but from a combination of light (especially infrared), minerals, and healthy fascia movement.
In modern life, several factors disrupt this system:
Lack of morning, midday and sunset sunlight (which helps structure water in tissues)
Lack of darkness at night
Processed foods that deplete minerals
Sedentary lifestyles that reduce fascial hydration
Chronic stress, which depletes magnesium and other hydration cofactors
Over-reliance on plain water without balancing electrolytes
In the joints, this results in a fascia that is dry, stiff, and sticky — unable to glide and cushion the way it should. Without adequate structured water, cartilage wears down more easily, and friction leads to inflammation.
The more I studied this, the more I realized: my body wasn’t “attacking itself” — my joints were thirsty at the deepest level.
When I began to shift my daily rhythms to support cellular hydration — through strategic light exposure, mineralized water, nourishing movement, and nervous system regulation — the joint pain began to ease. Slowly, the stiffness melted. The sense of betrayal dissolved into compassion: my body had been asking for help all along.
The Role of Primitive Reflexes
Another piece of the puzzle fell into place when I learned about primitive reflexes — early movement patterns wired into our nervous system before birth. Go here for more info. I also encourage you to check out this website.
Primitive reflexes are automatic, brainstem-driven responses that help infants survive, grow, and develop motor skills in the first year or two of life. Normally, these reflexes integrate and fade as higher brain centers mature, allowing for more voluntary, controlled movement.
But in many people — especially those exposed to birth trauma, developmental stress, chronic illness, or modern lifestyle stressors (e.g. toxins, artificial light, etc.) — these reflexes are active or unintegrated well into adulthood.
Here’s why this matters for joint pain:
When primitive reflexes are retained/active, the nervous system remains on alert — locked into patterns of hyper-vigilance, muscle tension, and poor coordination. Certain reflexes, like the Moro, Reflex, the Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex (TLR), Babinski or Spinal Galant Reflex, can create chronic flexion or extension in the body, increasing instability, compression on the spine, hips, knees, and other joints.
This creates several problems:
Constant muscle tension around joints, leading to stiffness and strain
Reduced lymphatic flow, impairing waste clearance and contributing to swelling
Sympathetic nervous system dominance (fight/flight), perpetuating inflammation
Restricted movement, which further dries out fascia and joints
In other words — even when I worked on hydration, if my nervous system was stuck in old reflexive patterns, it was still driving inflammation and joint compression from the inside out.
Through primitive reflex integration — using gentle, rhythmic movements to help the brain and body "integrate" these reflexes — I began to unlock these patterns.
Tension that I thought was just “part of me” began to release. My posture shifted. Movement became easier. And most importantly — my joints began to feel supported, not trapped in an invisible tug-of-war.
This was another key moment in reframing the pain: realizing that my nervous system wasn’t broken — it was simply operating old programs that were now ready to be rewritten.
Personal Story: The Day My Story Changed
For years, I carried the weight of a diagnosis: juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. The joint pain that had started in my teens became a defining part of my life. Every ache, every flare-up, every swollen knuckle and wrist bone felt like proof that my body was attacking me — and that I could do little more than cope.
I tried everything: medications, special diets, supplements, alternative therapies. Some helped temporarily. Others left me feeling more discouraged. No one could really explain why this was happening, and the story I had absorbed was simple but devastating: “Your body is broken. Your immune system is out of control.”
And then I stumbled into a new world.
Through my study of primitive reflex integration, quantum biology, fascia, circadian rhythms, and nervous system regulation, I began to piece together a different picture. The science was fascinating, but what moved me most was how these insights spoke to my lived experience.
I started seeing patterns:
Days spent outdoors in natural light brought more ease to my joints.
Mineral-rich water seemed to nourish me in ways plain water never had.
Gentle, rhythmic movements — rather than intense exercise — reduced stiffness.
Nervous system practices, like reflex integration, softened chronic tension.
And then, one day, it clicked. My body wasn’t betraying me — it was communicating with me.
The inflammation wasn’t random. The stiffness wasn’t a sign of permanent damage. These were messages from a body that was thirsty, overwhelmed, and longing for rhythm and safety.
I remember the exact moment this sank in. It wasn’t a gradual shift — it was a kind of rebirth. A deep knowing that everything I had been taught about this condition was not just incomplete, it was incorrect.
That day, I cried. For all the years I had fought against my body. For all the self-blame, the shame, the fear that I might never feel whole again.
And then I began the work:
Building simple daily rhythms that honored my body’s needs for light, hydration, movement, and safety.
Letting go of the war metaphor — and choosing, instead, to listen.
Over time, my joints softened. The flares became less frequent, less intense. I regained trust in my body — not as something to be feared, but as an ally.
And though the journey is ongoing, I now live with a very different story: one rooted in compassion, curiosity, and deep respect for the wisdom of the body. And no pain meds.
Implications for Healing
Reframing arthritis through this quantum lens doesn’t just change how we understand the science — it changes how we live in our bodies. And it applies to every single “diagnosis”, not just the labels that involve joint pain.
When we stop seeing inflammation as an enemy, and start seeing it as a message, our entire approach to healing softens. Fear gives way to curiosity. Control gives way to partnership.
This shift brings several important implications for those living with joint pain:
1. From fear to trust
When you believe your body is attacking you, you live in a state of hyper-vigilance. Every twinge becomes a threat. Those active primitive reflexes are reinforced.
But when you see pain as a signal — an intelligent response to dehydration, tension, or overwhelm — you begin to trust your body again. You learn to listen. You become an active participant in healing, rather than a passive recipient of treatment.
2. The importance of hydration, light, and rhythm
Healing isn’t just about “drinking more water” or taking another supplement. It’s about restoring the real inputs that the body needs to maintain coherence:
Light — natural sunlight to structure water and regulate circadian rhythms
Water — mineral-rich, structured hydration to nourish fascia and joints
Movement — gentle, rhythmic activity to rehydrate tissues and integrate active reflexes
Safety — nervous system practices to shift out of chronic stress
3. A shift away from suppression toward support
Instead of trying to silence symptoms with drugs alone, we can ask:
What is this inflammation telling me? What does my body need today?
This creates space for more sustainable healing — not just symptom management.
4. Compassion for the healing journey
It’s important to acknowledge: this is not a “quick fix” or a magic bullet. Healing takes time, especially when the body has been in a state of chronic dehydration or nervous system dysregulation for years or decades.
But small, consistent shifts — in light exposure, hydration, movement, and nervous system care — can create profound change over time.
Healing becomes less about “fighting arthritis” and more about creating the conditions where ease and mobility can return.
Conclusion
For much of my life, I believed my body was broken. I believed my immune system was attacking me, that inflammation was the enemy, and that pain was something to fear and suppress.
Now I know: that story was a lie.
Through the lens of quantum biology — through TRULY understanding REAL hydration, NATURAL light, fascia (the most underrated organ system!), rhythm, and the OUR AMAZING nervous system — I’ve come to see arthritis and joint pain in a new way. Not as a malfunction, but as a meaningful communication from a body doing its best to adapt to modern life.
This is the heart of the new story:
Your body is not attacking you. Your body is asking for your attention.
Symptoms are signals, not mistakes. Pain is not punishment, but guidance.
When we shift from war to partnership — when we nourish the body with the light, water, movement, and safety it needs — healing becomes possible in ways that conventional narratives don’t always imagine.
It won’t always be easy. The healing path not linear. But when we change the story we live by, we open the door to a new relationship with our body — one rooted in compassion, curiosity, and deep trust.
And that, in itself, is freedom.
Much love,
Amanda
P.S. If you’re feeling stuck in your healing journey and ready for a new way forward — I’d love to help. I work with clients in the midst of healing crises to gently reframe pain and restore ease. If you’re curious about what this could look like for you. I’d be honored to walk alongside you.
Are you ready to REFRAME the PAIN? Let’s work together!
Still have questions? Feel free to book a complimentary discovery call!