Cartilage Diseases

Cartilage is the silent tissue. You don't feel it when it's healthy. It works invisibly — as a buffer between your bones, as a shock absorber in your joints, as an elastic layer that converts friction into movement. Only when it breaks down, cracks, grows thinner, frays, do you notice what you had. Then it grinds. Then it hurts. Then every movement becomes a negotiation between wanting and being able.

Medically, cartilage loses its capacity for regeneration. Cells die, the structure becomes brittle, joint surfaces grind against each other. The diagnoses are called arthrosis, chondromalacia, degenerative cartilage damage — and they all sound like a body wearing itself down. Like wear and tear. Like age. Like a mechanical problem.