Chiropractic and Low Back Pain
Low back pain affects a significant portion of the population. Some studies say that up to 80% of us will have at least one episode of low back pain in our lives!
Our low back is our workhorse, and it provides stability and strength to our bodies. It allows us to lift heavy things, to pull and push loads, to hold our children, our laundry baskets, shovel our snow and push our lawnmower. It is also easy to abuse our lower back!
Most people who enter my office did not hurt their low back by moving the refrigerator. They usually have hurt themselves picking up a child's sock, or a piece of paper off the floor. More accurately, the straw that broke the camel's back (no pun intended, haha) was picking up their child's sock, but all the wear and tear they had previously subjected their lower back to is what has set them up for eventual failure.
Low back pain generally comes from 4 different sources:
1. Facet Joint Pain
Facet Joints are spinal joints that connect one vertebra to the other. Each vertebra has four facet joints; two that connect to the spinal bone above and two to the vertebra below. These joints can become painful for a few reasons, from a sudden "sprain" type of injury (such as from lifting your fridge, to follow the example above). Just as you would sprain your ankle, those joints may have undergone chronic, ongoing compression and pressure.
Facet joint pain tends to stay local to the injured area, is worse in the morning, and after being still for a while. Bending backward hurts more than bending forwards, and leaning toward the painful side hurts more than turning away.
2. Muscle Pain
The lower back has many layers of muscles that contribute to your core strength. Some of those muscles are small and deep, connecting one vertebra to the next one. Others are the big bulky muscles you see on the surface. Chronic tension and overuse of any of these groups can start the process of them becoming dysfunctional and painful. Muscles will also react to irritation in the nerves that feed them, resulting in tension and pain.
The more you use these muscles, the more pain you will tend to feel. Muscle pain will feel better with rest. The muscles themselves may be visibly swollen, hot and painful to touch. Bending forward is the worst movement for lower back pain caused by muscles, as is leaning away from the sore side.
3. Nerve Pain
The spinal cord is a long structural made up of tissue in the back. It tucks within the armour of the vertebrae and has a pair of nerves branching off from the spinal cord between each vertebra. These nerves can get compressed in the spinal cord, where they exit the spinal cord at the Facet Joints and move through the muscles heading outwards. Nerves respond painfully to being either compressed or distorted through stretching.
Nerve pain tends to travel down into the butt, thigh, leg, calf or foot. Anything that stretches the nerve or causes tension can increase the pain and things that relax the nerve bring relief. Nerve pain is usually secondary to an injury to the disc, joints or muscles, so the pain pattern is generally imposed on top of another kind of pain.
4. Disc Pain
Your discs are tough, fibrous spacers that sit between each vertebra and act as the spine's shock absorbers. With wear and tear over time, discs can become worn, thinner, and can crack, allowing some of the "jelly" that makes up their center to balloon out. This pain is sometimes called a disc bulge or herniation.
Disc injuries distort the spinal cord or nerves, causing pain that radiates out and down from the injured area into the buttocks, groin, legs, calves, and feet. Each spinal nerve has a very distinct pain pattern, making it easier to determine the disc involved.
Your Chiropractor's first task is to determine what is the source of your low back pain. Sometimes you may have a combination of causes of pain. Each of these different types of low back pain displays a very characteristic pain pattern, although a fair amount of overlap can be present.
Once the nature and cause of the pain are established, a treatment plan can be devised, and healing can begin.
Chiropractors use a variety of modalities or "tools" to help people with all types of low back pain.
Adjustments are an effective way to get the spine aligned and moving correctly again. A chiropractic adjustment corrects the position, alignment, and movement of a particular vertebra, reducing joint pain. A chiropractic adjustment can help pain:
that is coming from stuck or sprained and inflamed joints,
by moving the spinal bones away from inflamed nerves
by stretching and re-setting the length of the muscles around a vertebra and helping them to relax.
An adjustment is a way of repatterning an injured area, helping it to heal faster and, in the long run reducing wear and tear on that segment to avoid relapse.
Mobilizations are very gentle movements of the spine, rocking and stretching the vertebra and helping them release and move better. Mobilizations can help a whole section of the spine to move better, making it less inflamed and painful.
Stretching and soft tissue work for muscles like massage, trigger point therapy, myofascial release helps aid both the injured or tight muscles as well as the muscles that are tightening up to help protect the injured area. By loosening and helping injured muscles, bringing more blood into the muscles and sweeping inflammatory chemicals away, healing occurs, and pain drops. Also, when muscle tone around an injured joint or inflamed nerve is reduced, those structures heal faster as well.
Laser therapy, or Low-Level Light Therapy (LLLT), can help tissues heal faster. Different types of wavelengths of light penetrate our cells and help them kick out inflammatory chemicals that create pain and swelling and allow those cells to produce healing chemicals faster, speeding the path to recovery.
Chiropractic Care is known to be one of the most successful ways to heal low back pain. Chiropractors have a lot of tools and modalities in their toolbox to assist in recovery from low back pain caused by the most common sources, joints, muscles, nerves and discs. They are also experts in rehabilitating a lower back injury more permanently, helping people avoid relapse in the future.
Many studies have shown that chiropractic care is one of the most effective and cost-effective ways to rehabilitate your low back and get you back to doing the things you love.
Chiropractic Care can help with your low back pain