What You Should Know About Low Back Pain
Almost every person in the world will experience some form of Lower Back pain in their lifetime. Some people only for an hour or two, and others will be in so much pain and dysfunction that they can no longer work or do the things that they love most.
Why Do So Many People Suffer from Lower Back pain?
Everyone experiences a physical trauma at some point in their life. In fact, it is said that we have several thousand traumas by the time we are 10. A trauma can be HUGE like a car accident or jumping off a roof onto a trampoline and into a pool landing in a back flop. A trauma can also be small or a series of micro traumas, staring down at a computer screen or phone for hours per day.
Muscles and Scar Tissue
After one or many of these traumas, the body attempts to adapt its posture to keep the eyes on a level plane with the ground, causing many postural distortions occur. When a postural distortion occurs, muscles tighten. When a muscle tightens, it decreases the blood flow to the muscle itself and the surrounding tissue. This causes the muscles and cells to be decrease their ability to contract and relax, eventually (some say in as little as 96 hours) adhesions form in the tissue further backing up cellular activity creating a congested dump of inflexible waste, which includes chemicals and nerve impulses that send pain signals to the brain.
REALITY 2: If this goes unchecked and the body is allowed to maintain these distortions, chronic pain can really hinder a person’s life. Lower Back pain can affect home life with chores, daily activities, etc. It can affect relationships and work, and it often decreases a person’s ability to have fun for fear of increasing pain or even being in so much pain the activity is not possible!
Bones, Joints, and Discs
Big and Small traumas not only affect muscles, they also effect the skeletal system. Repeated or Big Traumas to joints, like muscles, can create scar tissue and decreased blood flow created a joint that cannot go through its full range of motion. In the spine, this is called degeneration. When the body is adapting to its altered posture due to trauma, the spine can see loss of curves, decreased disc or joint space, and eventual fusion of the spine. If the joints of the spine do not move properly, this again decreases the quality of an individual’s life due to pain and restricted motion.
Nerves
Nerves can be injured, compressed, or stretched leading to pain symptoms in the lower back and occasionally radiating to other areas of the body. Nerves can be affected by discs, muscles and joints. Depending upon where the nerve is affected the greater the pain or dysfunction.
How Can Upper Cervical Care help?
The upper cervical spine (neck) has thousands of nerve endings that are responsible for maintaining both the proper posture and the balance and stability of the head and body. These nerves are like an Airport Control Tower constantly monitoring the head position, making the necessary changes throughout the entire body to assure that the head remains upright. When the body is going through those changes to remain upright, muscle tighten to adapt for the postural distortion. Upper cervical chiropractic works directly with the “Airport Control Tower” to help decompression, realign, and help the body be in the best posture it can to decrease the influence of gravity. When balance, movement and posture is restored from the top down, it allows muscles to relax, improving blood flow to bring in fresh nutrients and oxygen allowing the body to begin to clean up the toxic dump of inflammation.
