Back Pain

If you haven’t experienced back pain in the past, count yourself lucky. NIH studies indicate that about 79% of the population will have back pain in some form or another during the course of their lifetime. In adolescence about 30% will have lower back pain but of those that do, 88% will have lower back pain in later years, so early back pain is a predictor of chronic back pain.

Many back pain problems are of the acute nature where the pain comes on suddenly but then goes away within a short time. When the pain is more serious, it will linger for days or even weeks. The next aspect is where the back pain becomes more chronic and stays around for months at a time before the cycle is broken.

Let’s look at what is happening in the body. With each incident of minor back pain, a certain amount of damage is done. As the episodes reoccur, more and more damage is done and the damage is cumulative at a particular joint. That means with each incident, the next episode will be worse. The body’s natural response is to form scar tissue around previous injuries and this scar tissue is less adaptable than the original tissue, leaving the back more susceptible to injury than originally. Eventually, there is enough scar tissue and damage that the joints start to undergo arthritic changes with its’ uneven cartilage and spur formation, as an attempt by the body to stabilize the joint. These are all natural processes in the adaptation to changing conditions within the body. The final outcome, later in life, is to have such arthritis that the free ranges of motion are severely restricted and pain lingers permanently.

There is good news for back pain sufferers. If you catch the pain early and get a few adjustments, the joint derangement can be reversed and normal motion can be restored. This process is drug free, relatively painless, involves no surgical intervention, and has the added bonus of restoring nervous system function to the area of injury. Adjustments are safe for people of all ages and there are extensive clinical trials that demonstrate the effectiveness as superior to many of the other interventions that are more aggressive.

Other treatments are available. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories help to reduce swelling in the area, but they cause damage to kidney and liver function over the long term. Muscle relaxers and pain killers will help you get through the episode, but they do nothing to restore normal motion to the deranged joint. Surgical intervention is not a consideration for most back pain sufferers because the condition is not serious enough (yet) to warrant such a dramatic intervention.

Why wait until the pain and joint derangement have gotten so bad that permanent changes have occurred. Adjustments are simple and very cost effective in the treatment of back pain. It’s worth an evaluation in the early stages of the problem, don’t you think?