Chiropractic

The lower back is a crucial area of the human body that is unfortunately exposed to quite a few dangers throughout daily life. The lower back is a vital to an individual’s comfort, which makes it all the more important to deal with low back pain treatment wisely. Too many people simply ignore the problem for as long as possible. They feel some discomfort and choose to ignore it with the hope that they will eventually feel better. Often the body will heal itself, but in the case of the lower back it can be very unwise to ignore issues.

There is a key distinction to make when discussing low back pain, though. Is it acute or chronic? Acute low back pain means that it is a temporal issue, having persisted for less than three months. Chronic pain means that the symptoms have extended for more than three months.

The key to low back pain treatment is to treat the cause, not the symptoms. Often various professionals will look to allay the symptoms of the pain but do not know how to address the causes of that pain. Addressing systemic pain in the lower back is about knowing what causes it to begin with and being able to actually do something about it. Providing comfort from the pain is not good enough. People want to know that they are being healed, not comforted.

Back pain is one of the main health complaints nowadays. It’s estimated that eight out of ten individuals suffer from back pain at some point in their lives. Lower back pain is amongst the most common areas for the pain to center around and that is because the structural integrity of the lower back is delicate. Those who have never had to seek low back pain treatment cannot really understand how serious it is. For many, it’s a temporal issue that fades in the days and weeks after it first appears. But for some, it is a chronic issue that appears and reappears constantly.

Low back pain treatments range in price, effectiveness, and style. There are surgical options, of course, but many people are quite wary of being cut open in order to solve their issues. Most people do not want to receive even local anesthesia, much less be put under for a surgical procedure. There are also drug-based therapies and solutions, but people tend to shy away from those for obvious reasons. This is why chiropractic low back pain treatment is a popular alternative.

One of the best things you can do in the immediate aftermath of realizing you have lower back pain is to take to bed for some much needed rest. This gives the back the relaxation is needs in order to heal from the more minor issues. Bed rest for one or two days has been proven by scientific studies to help back pain considerably. For many people, this next low back pain treatment proves to be actionable either before or after the back pain has been noticed. It confuses many people, but exercise is actually highly recommended if you are suffering from certain types of back pain. Exercises should only be used as treatment if a specialist or chiropractor suggests it to the patient. Exercises can be done which will improve the abdominal and back muscles, which can be extremely helpful to improving back function.

There are a wide variety of chiropractic solutions available to the average person in need of non-drug and non-surgical solutions. Spinal manipulation is one of the most common chiropractic solutions and utilizes a literally hands-on approach. The chiropractic specialist will engage in a spinal realignment that hopefully results in a less painful situation for the patient. Restoring back mobility through spinal readjustment and restoration is the goal of spinal manipulation, but it is must be applied by an experienced and successful chiropractic specialist. Traction is another chiropractic technique that is used as low back pain treatment. Traction uses weights to apply constant or intermittent pressure to the skeletal structure in order to “pull” it into better alignment. Again, this is a tactic that should only be employed by a trained and experienced chiropractic specialist.

Chiropractic techniques are most often the needed solutions because they actually address the causes of the lower back pain, rather than simply trying to get rid of the pain temporarily. Whether it is traction, spinal manipulation, or some other tactic, those individuals looking for low back pain treatment should only take advice and medical therapy from experienced, certified, medical professionals.

Slipped disc treatment involves the release of pressure off of the injured disc. This can be done in several different ways such as soft tissue manipulation or even manual traction, but a common and effective approach is through chiropractic manipulation of the vertebrae surrounding the affected disc. A slipped disc, or bulged disc as it is more appropriately termed, can occur anywhere along the spine. This is an injury which can range from mild to severe and be caused by a variety of activities. Improperly lifting heavy objects, poor posture and repetitive tasks are major culprits of disc injuries.  A truth regarding disc injuries is that they require your cooperation and dedication to truly heal. You will have to actively alter your lifestyle in order to heal and prevent a recurrence.  This can mean mending the way you perform activities, exercising more, sitting less or eliminating an activity  altogether. Any changes you make during this time will only improve your health and wellness further down the line. Once you have sustained this sort of injury the chances of recurrence are greater , so there is as much onus on you to prevent a recurrence as there is on your practitioner to help heal your current injury.

The term “slipped disc” is actually a misnomer. Your spinal discs are formed of a fibrous cartilage which is more or less cemented to the vertebral bones above and below it, preventing it from slipping at all. Inside the center of the fibrous disc is a pulpy substance which has a consistency much like pudding. This substance helps to absorb shock in your spine and spread pressures out evenly. A good visual of a spinal disc is to picture a jelly donut. As you move and bend the jelly will move around inside the disc sometimes squishing all against one side when you are performing a movement such as bending and other times spreading out to absorb weight.  Normally this would be acceptable however, in situations where you are bending a lot or bending while lifting weight, you begin to deteriorate the fibrous disc tissue that holds this jelly-like substance in.  This is when you would have a disc-bulge rather than a “slip.”  The bulge is the jelly innards of the disc breaking through the disc tissue and protruding out beyond the edges of the disc.  Most commonly, a few layers of disc retain the jelly from actually seeping out of the disc – the loss of the jelly entirely is known as a sequestrated disc. While a sequestrated disc undoubtedly requires surgery, a bulging disc does not. A bulging disc is where you can apply slipped disc treatment to reverse the problem.

The reason a disc-bulge is so painful is because there are only two areas on the disc exposed enough where the disc can bulge. It just so happens that these areas are right where the spinal nerves exit the vertebrae.  This means that the bulge is now pushing on the corresponding spinal nerve(s) which is why, when you have a disc-bulge or “slipped disc”, you can have pain or numbness in your extremities that radiates outward. Many times people will believe they are suffering from a muscle or joint injury in their extremity only to find that the extremity is fine and the issue is resonating from their lumbar, thoracic or cervical spine. This phenomenon is known as radiculopathy and can be thought of in very basic terms, such as the way a television works. You plug the television into the wall and see a picture on the screen; where the outlet is your spine, the cord is your nerve and the television is your muscle. If the picture on the television goes out, people tend to assume the television is broken but never consider that perhaps the issue is at the plug. The human body functions similarly as far as cause and effect goes. Slipped disc treatment will relieve pressure from the intervertebral spinal disc, allowing the jelly to return back to the centre of the disc, thus eliminating the bulge and radicular pain.

Slipped disc treatment can be a little uncomfortable but when the patient and practitioner work in tandem to resolve the injury, the amount of treatment necessary can be significantly reduced and pain relief can begin to be achieved in as little as one visit. If you find yourself suffering from a disc injury and may be facing slipped disc treatment, commit yourself to participating in your own recovery by following your chiropractor’s directions and prescriptions.

Do you suffer from lower back pain? If your answer is yes, you’re not alone. Eight out of ten people suffer from this type of ailment at some point in their lives. The type of pain can be minor (lasting from a few days to weeks) to more severe (lasting for months or even years).  Low back pain treatment is the most popular type of chiropractic care for back pain sufferers. Chiropractic low back pain treatment uses spinal adjustments to normalize mobility on spinal joints brought on by tissue injuries. These are brought on usually by accidents, sports injuries, and poor posture. Chiropractors refer to this is as misalignment of the vertebra. This causes irritation of the surrounding area and nerve area resulting in inflammation, pain and degeneration. With chiropractic treatment, pressure is taken off the disc, joints, nerves and symptoms are improved. It also prevents it from getting worse, and you can get to feeling like yourself again.  The treatment can also use soft tissue repair, stretching, and specific posture and strengthening exercises. However, if need be the chiropractor can use a spinal orthotic device called Denneroll , that is also used with the spinal adjustments. Back pain can be acute (less than one month) sub-acute (1-3 months) or chronic (more than three months). Most of the time low back pain can be caused from musculoskeletal problems, and unfortunately most people just put up with the pain until it becomes unbearable, and only then do they see a doctor. You can read more about the facts of low back pain here.

In addition, although low back pain treatment has come a long way, researchers are still studying spinal manipulation. For example, a 2010 review of 26 clinical trials reviewed the effectiveness of different treatments of both musculoskeletal and non-musculoskeletal conditions. The authors of the study concluded that the spinal manipulation works for acute, sub-acute and chronic low back pain. This means that it can work for just about anyone suffering from low back pain. Furthermore, there was a study completed last year in Switzerland which involved adults who were suffering from low back pain and who had not received chiropractic or manual help in the three months before the study took place. Patients with chronic back pain and acute pain both exhibited positive results. Patients with radiculopathy (when one or more set of nerves are not working properly) also had improved symptoms. Low back pain is considered to be the most common job related disability, especially for people who work in front of a computer all day, or do excessive labor.

Moreover, what chiropractors do is identify structural imbalances that are related to a number of neuro-musculoskeletal conditions. The daily stress on our backs related to everyday activities can lead to these imbalances resulting in a sprain or strain in the vertebrae area. This means that two or more vertebra have lost their normal motion or position.  Most of these imbalances in the early stages can exist without the person even feeling spinal pain.  However, as time goes on, the wear and tear worsens and is followed by various cases of muscular and skeletal dysfunction, which leads to pain. Low back pain treatment can also reduce tension, pain and other symptoms, as well as improved posture and balance. There is also a reduction in the rate of spinal degeneration, which will help you relax and cope with stress and changes in lifestyle. Furthermore, there will be an improved function of the body’s organs and systems. This will improve your emotional and health wellbeing, thus enjoying your life more.

Chiropractic care is known to be the one of the most popular forms of healthcare that people seek for neck and back pain.  It is safe, effective and drug free. These characteristics have made chiropractor the best recognized complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) professions. This is why people in the medical field are choosing it as a job, and it has become the third largest doctoral level profession, after medicine and dentistry. So, if you have back pain, make sure you go see a chiropractor to try low back pain treatment. It will get you on the road to recovery and back to doing the things that you love.