Lower back pain is one of the most common conditions in today’s society. In fact, studies show up to 80% of people will suffer from low back pain at some point in their life. It’s even the #1 cause of disability in the United States. Lower back pain is so common partially because we’ve never been taught how delicate our back really is, and how to take care of it properly. You’ve probably had episodes that have knocked you down for the count, but you push it to get back to work and life. Sound familiar? Anyone with lower back pain can tell you that one of the first things they notice is how tight the back can get. When the low back starts losing its normal motion, it slowly moves to a bad posture, which can cause degeneration over time. That’s why, if you’ve had an injury to your low back (such as a sports injury or a car accident), it may have altered your low back’s normal position at that time, and the bones never “got the memo” to move back to the right position. This is very common in chronic low back pain patients; the low back should have something resembling an arc or curve when looking at it from the side, but on x-ray that curve is frequently exaggerated due to chronic weakness. As you can imagine, our technology-based lifestyles may be big contributors to low back pain. The longer you sit at a computer, using your phone, or looking at a tablet or e-reader, the more likely you are to slouch, causing your lower back to go into a state of tension. Add in poor sleeping positions and it’s just another log on an already burning fire. The key to solving low back pain is to make sure there is good motion and a proper posture. This is where our specialty lies within chiropractic – restoring your range of motion, building your strength, and addressing your spinal alignment to make it as neutral as possible for the long-term.
How We Treat Lower Back Pain in Ramsey, NJ
When it comes to low back pain, it’s important to find the root cause, not just the daily aggravators. Our protocol consists of:
Comprehensive Consultation and Exam
We’re going to sit down with you to dig into your history, as many clues about your lower back pain come from that discussion. It’s a two-way conversation, as we’re listening intently but providing feedback along the way. During the exam portion, we’ll check things like your low back’s range of motion and lower body muscle strength and perform several orthopedic and neurological tests to see where you are compared to normal. This helps us identify exactly how your lower back pain is affecting your overall health.
Computerized Posture Analysis
Your neutral standing posture is one of our most important tools to analyzing where your low back pain is coming from. We take pictures of you from front and side, and by placing digital reference points on your pictures we can see in seconds where your body is under the most stress from poor posture. Most people are amazed as to what they really look like!
Digital X-Rays
We use the most up-to-date technology both when taking and analyzing x-rays to know exactly what we are dealing with before we start care. There are three main things we are looking for in your low back x-rays: degeneration, disc spacing, and how far your alignment is from normal alignment. In the low back specifically, we look to see how far your rib cage is from your hips, both from the front and from the side. We know the normal angles and positions of the bones, and we match your x-rays up to those normals to evaluate the strength of your spine.
Once we have evaluated all of the information, we then choose from several therapies, depending upon your condition:
Specific Chiropractic Adjustments
At its core, the spine wants to be neutral. When bones are out of their normal position (sometimes one in a section of your spine, sometimes several), the result is a gradually weakening posture and pressure on the nerves between the bones. By reducing the misalignments in those areas, the spine gets more freedom of motion, allowing function to improve. We find that improving this alignment with chiropractic adjustments can be significant in reducing the frequency and intensity of low back pain.
Custom Therapeutic Exercise Plan
Trying to recover from low back pain can’t fully occur if there is muscle weakness or imbalance. If your muscles have been fighting a bad posture for many years (maybe even exaggerated by long hours at a computer, driving or sitting), getting them strong is a priority. We often find people with low back pain present with limited range of motion in the low back. Therefore, we start by increasing flexibility. Once your range has improved, we then can focus on building your strength. It takes consistency, so we give you a customized exercise plan for both in-office and at home to make sure you’re able to keep aggravating episodes to a minimum, both in frequency and intensity.
Lumbar Spinal Decompression
There are occasions where low back pain may be caused by a bulging or herniated disc in your low back, putting direct pressure on highly sensitive nerves. In these cases, spinal decompression is a highly effective therapy which gently pulls you’re your hips away from your lower ribs. This allows the muscles in your low back to relax while relieving the disc pressure on your nerves. As with exercise, consistency of decompression is important to change muscle patterns that have been set in for a long time. But the results, in conjunction with spinal adjustments and your customized exercises, can be significant.
Electrical Muscle Stimulation
In the initial stages of care, we are looking to reduce muscle spasm and tension in the low back. Electrical muscle stimulation is used to accelerate that process, allowing you to feel better and alleviate the low back stiffness often associated with low back pain. Most people say e-stim feels like a light massage and often comment how much looser they feel when it’s done.
Posture Rehabilitation
If your low back pain improves but your posture is still poor, the likelihood of having relapses is high. Putting in a plan to create and stabilize good, strong posture is your key to having the longest-lasting results. We’ll utilize various forms of therapy to put your posture in the “mirror image” – essentially, the exact opposite posture that you currently have. (Let’s face it – that posture isn’t helping you, or you wouldn’t have low back pain!) By performing mirror image exercises and traction, your body will gradually learn what “correct” posture is. Each time in-office and at home that your body goes into the mirror image, it’s another signal to the brain, your bones and your muscles to dump the old, bad patterns and create new, stronger patterns. This may be the most overlooked aspect of low back pain; there’s no way a weak posture can help you get better.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture can help remove negative energy and restore positive energy throughout your body. By focusing on specific points and zone in your body, endorphins (the “feel-good” hormones) get released, and that triggers a positive response throughout the body. Acupuncture has been used for both acute and chronic low back pain and can be very beneficial, either on its own or in conjunction with chiropractic and postural rehabilitation.
Supplements and Other At-Home Remedies
Depending on the cause of your low back pain, certain nutritional supplements may be worthwhile. However, each case is different, which means your nutritional recommendations may be quite different than someone else you know with low back pain. We’ll often recommend certain topical gels or ointments to relieve muscle tension and reduce pain. Some of our recommendations can even be purchased in your local grocery store or health food store.
Lifestyle Changes
Given that we’re working for 8-10 hours a day and sleeping 6-8 hours, whatever posture you’re in had better be right for that amount of time! It’s important that you know how to sleep, how to bend and lift, and how to sit at your computer. It’s just as important knowing what not to do. Sometimes simple shifts make the biggest differences, and that’s especially true when it comes to your daily habits. We’ll make sure you know what those shifts are to avoid injury and get the best results in our office.
Common Causes of Low Back Pain
Low back pain come in many different styles. Remember, low back pain is common, but not normal. Here’s a few of the ones we see most frequently:
Disc Problems
Discs are like shock absorbers between the bones of the low back. Think of them like jelly donuts, with a thick outside (“annulus”) and a soft, gel-like inside (“nucleus”). Discs wear down and dehydrate over time and frequently cause two stages of problems – bulging discs and herniated discs. In a bulging disc, the thick outer fibers begin to tear, and the soft gel inside takes the path of least resistance to get out. This causes low back pain and can sometimes radiate to the buttock or leg. With a disc herniation, the outer fibers tear more and the “nucleus” breaks through the outermost fibers. This frequently causes more buttock and leg pain (often going into the foot) and more intense low back pain. Surgery may be necessary if it doesn’t improve, which is why it’s so important to fix it early.
Degenerative Disc Disease
This is an age-related condition where the discs break down at a faster rate than normal. Certain factors speed this process up, such as obesity, smoking, and work that is physically hard on the spine. When the disc starts to get thinner, the hole where the nerve exits the bones above and below gets smaller, causing that sensitive nerve to reduce how well it works. Depending on what areas are affected, it can have significant affects on not only range of motion but overall health. Unfortunately, this process can’t be reversed, but it can be slowed with increased motion and restoration of good posture.
Muscle Strain
Muscle strains are characterized by dull, achy pain that gets deeper and more intense with movement, usually in one particular direction. The pain is often localized to the lower back alone. They’re frequently caused by some sudden activity, such as bending or lifting something heavy. They can also be chronic, resulting from repetitive motion, poor posture or weak core muscles. A muscle strain can be a symptom of something else; that’s why we go deep you’re your history to determine any other hidden causes. Muscle strains will often resolve themselves over time but it’s important to fix them as early as possible so they don’t become chronic areas of weakness.
Sacro-Iliac (SI) Joint Dysfunction
The SI joint is best described as the area where your hip meets up with your spine on either side. The SI joint absorbs the shock between the upper body and the pelvis and legs, so it’s no surprise that this is a common cause of lower back pain (about 15-30% of lower back pain by some estimates). Common causes include pregnancy, having a short leg, and repeatedly stressing the joints with strenuous activity. The SI joint can be affected by either hypomobility (moving too little) or hypermobility (moving too much). Regardless, the SI joint function must be addressed when evaluating your lower back pain and your posture, as it helps us to determine what kind of results we can expect.
Spinal Misalignment
When the bones of the low back are misaligned, it results in pressure on the nerves of the spine. This can be caused by poor posture with sitting, sleeping or standing, and can even create additional issues such as weakness or numbness and tingling in the legs and feet. You can likely spot some aspects of your own poor posture in a mirror but identifying spinal misalignment can be subtle and difficult to detect on your own. A combination of specific chiropractic adjustments, exercise and lifestyle change are just some of the ways to help recover and restore poor posture.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lower Back Pain
When should you see a chiropractor for lower back pain?
There’s no wrong time to see a chiropractor for low back pain. Whether it has been going on for a short time or chronically for years, an evaluation of your spine and overall posture will benefit at any point.
Is a massage or chiropractic better for low back pain?
Massage will typically be helpful in the acute stage of low back pain. Chiropractic can be very effective for both acute low back pain and finding the underlying causes of chronic low back pain as well.
How does a herniated disc feel?
Herniated discs are often very painful, especially if they were caused by an acute injury. Herniated discs will frequently radiate symptoms to the buttock, leg, calf or foot. Symptoms include pain, numbness, tingling and/or weakness. It can be difficult to walk due to pain as well.
What causes lower back pain?
The most common causes of low back pain include poor posture: spine degeneration (such as with arthritis): poor biomechanics when using the back, such as with lifting or bending; high-impact injuries, as in car accidents or sports injuries; and being overweight or sedentary.
How should I sleep with low back pain?
Before going to sleep, use moist heat on the shoulders and low back for 15-20 minutes, followed by slow low back range of motion stretches. Your sleep position should be as neutral as possible, using a pillow under the knees to keep them bent (for back sleepers) or a pillow between the legs (for side sleepers).
