Back Pain? You Need to Treat the Whole Body.

Yesterday, I had a patient say to me “wow, its amazing that everything in the body is connected.”  She said this after I had adjusted her low back and her neck pain went away.

I get this type of comment often and its sort of strange when you think about it.  The fact that everything in your body is connected is self-evident.  One part of the body cannot be damaged without all the other parts being affected.

Think about it.  When you get a sinus infection, what happens ?  You get a fever and chills from your body temperature elevating.  You heart rate goes up.  Your respiration changes.  Your appetite goes down.  Your head aches, the neck can get stiff, and on and on.  All caused by an infection in your nose.

American medicine tends to look at the body as a collection of a bunch of parts.  If the appendix gets infected, take it out.  If the blood pressure rises, take a pill to make the heartbeat weaker.  If the low back hurts, inject the area with numbing medication.

American medicine never seems to stop and consider that maybe the appendix is infected because of an intestinal problem.  Or the blood pressure is high because of dehydration.  Or the low back is hurting because of poor posture.

Now, I’m not saying that you don’t need to treat things medically.  For example, an appendix operation could save your life.  What I am saying is, that people need to focus on the issues that caused the condition to occur in the first place.  If you don’t, you are simply masking over issues that will come back to haunt you later.

When it comes to the spine, this is especially true.  John Bland MD author of Disorders of the Cervical Spine says:

“ We tend to divide the examination of the spine into regions: cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine clinical studies.  This is a mistake.  The three units are closely interrelated structurally and functionally-a whole person with a whole spine.  The cervical spine may be symptomatic because of a thoracic or lumbar spine abnormality and vice versa ! Sometimes treating a lumbar spine will relieve a cervical spine syndrome, or proper management of a cervical spine will relieve low backache.”

The spine needs to be treated as a whole unit.  To be even more accurate, the body needs to be treated as a whole.

To find out more about how I treat low back pain, log on to www.newbackpainreliefinfo.com.

How to Improve Posture

Unlike what you may have been told, posture is the way your body appears when you are relaxed.  It is not how it appears when you are working like heck to hold yourself upright.  Posture cannot be controlled by muscles, exercise, tractioning your body or any other thing except getting the skeletal structure corrected.   In the past, Chiropractors, osteopaths, physical therapists and others have not been able to consistently correct posture problems.   Advanced Biostructural Correction is an innovative technique that can correct posture without bracing or exercise.  You stand the way you are supposed to, without effort.  Take a look at these pre and post treatment photos.

To make an appointment for a Free No Obligation Consultation to see how we might be able to help your posture problem, call Jennifer at 262-251-8306.

Spondylolisthesis – What Is That?

Anna was competing in a gymnastics tournament last year and during one of her floor routines, noticed a sharp pain in her low back after performing a series of back hand springs. She said she landed crooked on the last of four back hand springs which resulted in immediate pain in the middle of the low back at the beltline.  She has had pain in the low back before and initially, didn’t think this was any different from past episodes but when the pain didn’t improve after a week, she asked her parents if she could see their chiropractor for an adjustment.  Her chiropractor took her history and was alerted by the mechanism of injury – the rapid onset of pain after bending backwards and landing crooked during her routine.  The low back was carefully examined and during the range of motion testing, Anna’s backward bending test was very painful and limited in motion.  When bending backwards at an angle with pressure applied in the low back, sharp pain stopped the test immediately.  Her neurological tests were normal and she could bend over and touch her toes – in fact, that felt good.  Her chiropractor had a strong suspicion of what had happened and ordered an x-ray to see if the preliminary diagnosis was accurate.  The x-rays looked normal but with the history of extreme backward bending and immediate pain onset, a bone scan was ordered which was positive for a stress fracture in the back part of the vertebra.  Unfortunately, this meant no gymnastics for 3 months and the use of a low back brace was recommended.  The good news is that the back pain was gone within a month and follow-up x-rays 3 months later did not reveal a visible fracture line in the vertebra.  Anna was able to resume gymnastics and competed with success and no low back pain.

So, what is spondylolisthesis? As depicted in the side view low back x-ray (left), it is the sliding forward of one vertebra over another (see arrow). It occurs in about 7% of the population and up to 30-50% in cultures that carry their young on their back (like a back pack).  It is reported that most people who develop a spondylolisthesis acquire this between ages 6 and 16 due to a developmental weakness in that part of the spine, though more research is showing that the cause is due to trauma.  It can also gradually occur over time (called “degenerative”), usually not found before age 50-60, where no single event can be recalled by the patient. There is also a type called a pending spondylolisthesis where a fracture occurs without slippage.

The good news is that “spondylos” are mostly stable and do not require surgery.  In the more severe case, the nerves and/or spinal cord can get pinched, in which case surgery is necessary.  The symptoms would then include leg pain, weakness, and/or numbness with or without significant low back pain. Most cases however, can be successfully managed without surgery and do not compromise the nerves or cord.

Chiropractic has been found to be very successful in managing patients with spondylolisthesis as the pain generator is often above or below the slipped vertebra.  In fact, in one report, chiropractic was found to be more beneficial than medical care for this condition (Mierau D, et.al., J Manip Physiol Therap 1987;10:49-55).   For more information on back pain log onto, www.newbackpainreliefinfo.com

IF YOU HAVE A SPONDYLOLISTHESIS YOU MAY BE A CANDIDATE FOR CHIROPRACTIC CARE ! FOR A FREE NO-OBLIGATION CONSULTATION CALL 262-251-8306