Low Back Pain
Overview
Low back pain can be disruptive to your work, your daily activities, your mobility and your overall wellbeing. If you have low back pain, you are not alone. The majority of Americans experiences severe back pain at some point in their lifetime and it is the second leading cause of time missed from work.
Lower back pain can have many different causes, such as acute trauma from a car accident or sports injury. However, working at a computer is a risk factor for chronic lower back pain due to the structural changes that occur over time. This is usually the result of poor posture, also called Computer Related Postural Disorder.
The body is a fantastic, dynamic machine constantly adapting to its environment. If you lift weights, your muscles get stronger, if you stretch, your muscles get longer. However, structural changes are not always good for the body. Working at a computer without proper posture or improper workstation layout causes certain muscles of the body to get tight and certain muscles to get weak. Over time, this causes changes to blood flow, nerve flow, and to the structure of the spine itself, which can ultimately lead to pain and other symptoms in the body. Additionally, sitting with poor posture can put tremendous pressure on our discs and this can lead to disc bulges and herniation’s.
Treatment
Fortunately, upper back pain can be effectively and efficiently treated with an alternative healthcare approach and without unnecessary medication. Recent research published through the National Institutes of Health found that spinal manipulative therapy was more effective than pain medication and placebo.
More often than not, lower back pain is caused by structural changes, whether it is tight muscles, joint dysfunction, and nerve or disc pressure. Chemical solutions (pain medications) may offer short term relief from low back pain, but long term correction will require a structural solution.
Exercise
The body was built to be in motion. Specific exercise is a major component of changing a person’s structure to achieve long term pain relief. If a person has poor posture, there are certain muscles that have become tight and certain muscles that have become weak. Stretching a weak muscle makes matters worse, as does strengthening a tight muscle. The Wellness Exam with Dr. Moyer will help identify these postural imbalances. A Personalized Fitness Plan is a personalized exercise prescription developed from the Wellness Exam that will detail out the exercises needed to restore proper posture to your body.
There is a plethora of peer-reviewed research showing chiropractic care is more effective than medication for lower back pain. Chiropractic Care for low back pain should be considered for two phases of care: short term and long term.
Spinal manipulation performed by a chiropractor can do many things for relief of lower back pain including reduces pressure placed on nerves, restore motion to lumbar vertebrae that have become stuck, and improve range of motion of the spine as a whole. Short term, this provides for quick pain relief in only a few visits over the course of a week or two. Long term, this prevents lower back pain from coming back. If you are interested in finding out if chiropractic can help relieve your lower back pain, schedule a free chiropractic consultation with Dr. Moyer today.
Massage can help to release muscle tension and promote the flow of “feel good” endorphins. A recent study discussed in this article on WebMD shows that patients with low back pain who received full body massages once a week were less likely to need medication, bed rest, or sick leave, after 10 weeks, than those who didn’t receive massages. Moyer Total Wellness won Best Massage in Denver in 2012 because we only hire therapists with experience in proving therapy. Click here to schedule a massage with one of our experienced therapists.