Lower Back Pain

You might guess that low back pain is one of the major reasons for missing work or pleasure activities in this country. You would be correct, as low back pain in many forms is almost epidemic in our society. In younger people low back pain is almost always a result of overdoing activity in a game or a work project. The ligaments are sprained, and if the sprain is bad enough, spinal nerves are irritated and muscle spasm results. What has happened in this instance is that due to the event, the spinal lumbar (low back ) bones are forcibly moved far enough out of position so as to cause severe inflammation.

As a result of the inflammatory process, water leaks out of the capillaries in that area. As the water continues to flow out of the capillaries,  pressure is increased in the local area. After all, the water should not be there in such a large quantity. The nerves in that local area are pressured by the extra water and are irritated to the point where results.

As a Chiropractor I understand that moving the displaced bone back into its proper position will reduce the cause of the inflammation and thus reduce the pain somewhat. So that the bone “learns” its proper position in the spine once again, repeated Chiropractic adjustments may have to be performed. The insurance companies understand this and are willing to compensate for multiple visits until the body is able to heal itself.

When we see an older person (generally 60+) with low back pain, we are dealing with a different situation. Here the pain may result from a much less severe causation. In older persons the spinal joint has very often become degenerated due mostly to neglect and also past injuries. The mechanism of injury is much the same, but with far less force involved. In fact most of you probably know someone with low back pain who claims “but I only bent over to pickup a paperclip!”

In these cases this was truly the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” The degeneration had been festering for a long time and finally became obvious due only to a simple movement (many times this occurs on the first day of your vacation when you energetically yanked the heavy suitcase and felt your low back tweak).

For this reason I always recommend regular “tune up” visits to assure that your spinal alignment is proper and in good shape. In conclusion, Chiropractic spinal adjustments have historically shown to be the best way to correct a problem after it occurs and also to prevent the problem from occurring in the first place, by maintaining your proper spinal alignment.

Many times a chiropractor can successfully treat a low back condition that the medical doctors have condemned to surgery. Sadly many people have been told “you will have to learn to live with this,” when chiropractic treatment could have provided a successful outcome of the situation.