Understanding Low Back Pain.

Have you ever thought about how common Back Pain is in our society?

Even with so many advances in medicine with medications and surgeries, it is not making a dent in Back Pain.

Clearly the most common methods of treating people that have Back Pain is not working.

In fact, we have more Back Pain now that ever before.

Back Pain is a very serious problem that effects millions of Americans every day.

Estimates are that as many as 31 million Americans experience Back Pain on any given day.

Low back pain is the leading cause of disability.

It interferes with a person’s ability to work, perform normal daily activities, enjoy hobbies, play with kids / grand kids, and more.

Back Pain is the 2nd most common reason people see a doctor (only behind upper respiratory infections).

Half of all working Americans have back pain every year…

And an estimated 80% of people experience a back problem at some time.

We spend more than $50 billion a year on Back Pain in the US.

What Causes Low Back Pain?

The vast majority of Back Pain is functional.

It’s a mechanical or a problem with the way the back, it’s joints, muscles, and nervous system are functioning. This is true even in the vast majority of people with severe Low Back Pain.

Over time these functional problems create stresses on the joints, discs, and soft tissues that help us be able to move properly.

This leads to many problems ranging from degenerative changes like degenerative disc disease, arthritis, and more.

Our bodies change with these dysfunctions.

One significant problem is how our nervous system adapts to the changes resulting in abnormal ability to control our movements.

Changes in motor control may result in abnormal postures which put our Back in poor positions where it is not able to take as much stress.

Other nervous system changes strengthen our pain system similar to how you may strengthen a muscle by lifting weights.

Increasing the efficiency of our pain system is our body’s attempt to restrict our movements in order to prevent further damage.

During this time, the vast majority of people take pain reliever medications to reduce their pain and allow them to continue with their daily activities so they can stop the body’s warning… our pain.

Unfortunately this strategy does not address the underlying problem.

This leads to ever increasing damage to our Backs.

This damage makes it easier to suffer an injury when a trauma like a car crash, sports injury, …

Of course it’s easy to understand how a big trauma can injure the back but as we continue taking medications for our pain without addressing the underlying dysfunction… our backs ‘wear out‘ over time…

Leading to something simple like doing yard work or bending over to pick something up from the floor and having your Back ‘go out.’

This is the reason that so many people are continuing to suffer day after day…

Most people only see their MD for Back Pain.

This can provide some pain relief with various medications ranging from NSAIDs to muscle relaxers to steroids and opiates.

There may be a need for these medications.

The problem is that we still need to fix the underlying cause of the pain.

Pain relievers allow you to essentially turn off or reduce our body’s warning that something is wrong so we can keep doing what we need to do.

This strategy allows us to continue damaging our Backs until at some point there may be a catastrophic failure that might lead to a major disc herniation and even more suffering.

We shouldn’t only mask a symptom but also address the actual problem.

Chiropractic Care is different.

Chiropractic doctors treat people that have so many different problems beyond Back Pain.

Back Pain is probably the condition that Chiropractors are best known to help.

Why is Chiropractic so effective for Back Pain?

We look at what is causing the pain, the underlying, then correct that problem so that a person doesn’t just feel better… they are better.

This is what we do to help people in our Texarkana Clinic that suffer from painful conditions like Back Pain.

Do you live in the Texarkana area and need help?

Come see us at our Texarkana office!