Advanced Spine Center:

Pain Management for chronic Low Back Pain/ Sciatica/ Disc Pain

If you have back pain, chiropractic may be a very good treatment option. Chiropractic is used by many patients with low back pain.  In fact, over 40% of patients with low back pain seek the services of a chiropractor to help relieve their pain. (1)

Why Consult a Chiropractor

Chiropractic offers gentle, effective, and time-saving approaches to treat your low back pain.  Chiropractic is a drugless, non-surgical system of health care. One important principle of chiropractic involves returning motion to the spine. Recent research shows that when the someone has restricted spinal motion—when the spine doesn't move as well as it should—it can cause severe back pain. (2)

Chiropractors emphasize spinal manipulation as a means of correcting spinal joint restrictions and relieving pain, treating disc injuries, improving alignment and posture, and promoting health and wellness.

Chiropractic has developed a number of treatment options, in addition to traditional spinal adjustments.

These treatment options help chiropractors address a wide range of back pain conditions.

Low back conditions that respond to chiropractic care include:

• back sprain injuries
• spinal joint restriction syndromes
• facet joint sprain
• sacroiliac sprain
• disc injuries that don't require surgery
• stenosis
• various types of chronic low back pain

Before deciding which approach or approaches are for your pain, the chiropractor will do a thorough examination to diagnose the specific cause of your pain.

How a Chiropractor Diagnoses Back Pain

When you come in for your first appointment complaining of low back pain, our physicians will evaluate your spine as a whole. The chiropractor will check your neck, mid-back, and low back. It's important to examine the entire spine because even though it's just your low back that hurts, other regions of the spine may be affected.

We will determine areas of restricted joint motion, disc injury, muscle spasm, and ligament injury. One way we do this is through motion and palpation of each unit of motion in the spine. These diagnostic techniques are unique to chiropractors. Motion and static palpation is an examination by means of movement and touch. We will feel for tenderness and tightness. (2)

We will also analyze how you walk-your gait- and look at your posture. Those details will help us understand your body mechanics and how well your spine is working and moving.

The chiropractic examination includes orthopedic exam, neurological exams and history. We might also have you get imaging tests and/or lab tests in order to help him or her diagnose the cause of your back pain.

All this imformation helps our physicians to construct detailed treatment options for you.

Possible Chiropractic Treatment Approaches for Back Pain

The exact treatment plan depends on your diagnosis. Our physicians use a combination of spinal manipulation, manual techniques, and  instruments.

Some possible spinal manipulation treatment approaches are:

• specific spinal manipulation: This is a hands on adjustment to a segment that is restricted, putting motion back into it.

• Cox Flexion/Distraction:  This is a gentle, non-thrusting type of spinal manipulation. This treatment is still hands-on, utilizing a specialized table to assist us. It's especially useful in treating bulging discs and ruptured (herniated) discs.

• Instrument-assisted manipulation: This is a non-thrusting technique. Using a hand-held instrument, the chiropractor can apply force without thrusting into the spine. This is especially appropriate in older patients with degenerative joint syndrome or young patients that are afraid of manual adjustments.

To treat your back pain, we might also use various manual therapies. These are used to treat soft tissue (ligaments, tendons and muscles) injuries. This incldes:

• trigger point therapy:   Specific tight, painful points on a muscle. Then he or she puts direct pressure, using the fingers, on these points to relieve the tension.
• manual joint stretching and resistance techniques:  Active Release Technique (A.R.T.), soft tissue massage, NIMMO,
• instrument-assisted soft tissue therapy: Graston technique.  Research has shown that instrument-assisted soft tissue therapy increases the number of fibroblasts in the area. Fibroblasts are special cells that help heal injuries, including muscle injuries. If there are more fibroblasts, then the strained muscle, for example, can heal faster.
• Exercise:  Area specific exercises help keep pain away and makes the patient more aware of problems.  These exercises are very simple and easy to do anywhere. 

How Chiropractic Helps Patients with Back Pain
Green Chiropractic's goal is to help you return to your normal activities quickly so that you can enjoy your daily life without pain. We will work to address the underlying mechanical -how the spine moves- or neurological causes of your back pain.

Prevention and Whole Person Care
Our chiropractors are "whole person" doctors who view back pain as unique to each patient. Therefore, they don't focus on just your back pain. Chiropractic care includes nutrition, stress management, and lifestyle goals (because all of those can add to back pain, so you need to address them if you really want to relieve your pain).

We emphasize prevention as the key to long-term health—another example of chiropractors looking at the whole person, not just the painful problem. Preventing low back pain is vital to the chiropractic approach to care.

Reference

1. Waddell G. Low back pain: A twentieth century health care enigma. Spine 1996;21(24):2820-2825. What's the theme of this page? Do you have supplemental information you'd like to share with your visitors? Unique details about your business that don't seem quite right for your other pages?

2. spine universe 2009

"We'll break our backs trying to fix yours"

If you are suffering low back or disc pain, you need call to schedule with Dr. Green today.  He can help you.