Back Pain Treatment Sans Crack

Low back pain is the number one reason for lost time at work, and it's getting worse since more jobs require marathon sitting sessions in front of computers like the one you're reading this post from right now. You should know that sitting puts more pressure on the lumbar discs than almost any other position (the worst is bending forward from a seated position and picking something up from the floor like a purse, for instance).

Statistically, the average back pain patient seeks help from a primary care physician. This typically leads to a round of anti-inflammatory drugs that may or may not help. Inflammation is huge when it comes to pain to be sure, but if the pain is being generated from a mechanical issue in the back such as a disc bulge, well, you need a mechanical solution. Enter Green Chiropractic.

There are plenty of reasons people avoid chiropractors, all of which will be addressed here in upcoming posts. Today, however, we'll focus on the fear of the crack that is often associated with spinal manipulation. I'll explain what the crack is, what it does, and why you should still come here if you're nervous about it.

Low back pain can be caused by many things, and is often the result of multiple factors coming into play. There can be a weakness in the protective muscles, along with a bulging lumbar disc. If the disc bulges far enough backwards it can compress the nerve roots coming off your spinal cord and lead to the classic numbness and tingling symptoms associated with sciatica down the leg or arm pain when you have a disc in your neck acting up.

Allow me to illustrate:

A scenario like the picture here can often be managed with spinal manipulation and exercise. The cracking style manipulation (often referred to as an adjustment by chiropractors) gaps the joints around the disc, and gives everything a little room to breathe, so to speak. The cracking sound is the release of gasses inside the joint that occurs when the joints gap, the same as when your knuckles crack. The resulting loss of pressure on the nerve root will decrease pain. However, there is an even cooler pain reducing mechanism that occurs--the nerves that transmit regular non-painful stimulus are fast conducting compared to the pain relaying nerves. But they enter the spinal cord through the same pipe. When the faster nerves are stimulated from the action of the joints gapping, the mechanical nerves overtake and dampen the signal of the pain-bringers. Sort of like when you hit your knee on something and then rub it to make it hurt less, but a lot better.

What I just described is one of the big reasons some people like to get adjusted on a regular basis. They feel "looser" and there is a general reduction in the aches and pains of life that we all get as we age. And that's cool with me.

However, not everyone is so hip to get their crack on, but they still need help with their back pain. Enter option two: Flexion/Distraction (F/D). I've always thought it should really be distraction/flexion, since that's the correct order of operations, but nobody asked me. F/D is essentially the use of a special table that uses mechanical traction  to open up the tissues around the disc. This has been proven to lower the pressure inside the disc which effectively creates a vacuum inside that can correct a disc bulge. See here for more info than most people would ever care to read. The opening around the nerve root has been measured to increase by 28% using this technique, and when it's just a millimeter of disc material pressing against a nerve root, 28% can be huge.

F/D is also helpful for people with bone spurs closing in on the nerve root, muscle tightness, and a number of other pain generators that can ruin your day. Determining the pain generator(s) is what we'll do on exam here, and usually doesn't require imaging or any other expensive procedures. But we'll save stuff for another post...

And as always, see our website for more info including where we are and what we do.