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Back pain is one of the most debilitating health conditions to live with. It affects millions worldwide and costs economies billions of dollars in lost productivity. It’s also the most common reason people seek out chiropractic help, and for good reason.
Chiropractic’s holistic approach to health care dovetails well with the NICE guidelines for treating lower back pain. This means a chiropractor is often the ideal healthcare professional to help with back pain.
In this post, we discuss the most common causes of back pain, explain how a chiropractor can treat these, and explore the benefits of seeking chiropractic help for back pain. So, let’s dive right in…
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines are a series of evidence-based healthcare procedures for treating various health conditions and disorders, like lower back pain.
They aim to provide guidance for healthcare practitioners to help standardise and improve health and social care in the UK.
The guidelines for lower back pain in particular recommend manual and physical therapy, exercise, and psychological support as front line treatments for lower back pain. These align perfectly with chiropractic’s holistic approach to health care.
Chiropractic techniques and therapies offer drug-free, holistic help for pain and discomfort for a range of conditions like:
However, the UK General Chiropractic Council has guidelines that specify the circumstances under which chiropractic techniques may, or may not, be used. At your first appointment, your chiropractor will assess whether or not any of these apply to your circumstances, and discuss treatment options with you.
Back pain can strike at any time but is more likely to happen as a result of:
Accidental injury includes many of those incidents that happen throughout life – trips and falls, car accidents, sports injuries, and so on. These can cause strains in the muscles and ligaments that support the spine, and misalign spinal joints. All these types of incidents can cause acute back pain.
If you spend long periods sitting down or don’t do much physical activity, you may develop muscle imbalances, poor posture and a tight hip flexor, causing back pain, stiffness, and reduced mobility.
Degenerative diseases like osteoarthritis or degenerative disc disease can cause chronic and debilitating back pain and stiffness.
Skeletal irregularities, such as scoliosis or spondylolisthesis, can result in spinal alignment abnormalities, and back pain.
Chiropractors can treat many types of back pain but, most commonly, they treat back pain caused by:
These are caused by overstretching or tearing tissue in the muscles and tendons that support the spine and surrounding structures. The most common causes are heavy lifting, particularly when done incorrectly, and sudden movements such as slips or tripping.
A protective spinal disc separates the vertebra in your back. They have a tough collagen fibre outer shell (Annulus Fibrosus) and a soft core (Nucleus Pulposus) made of water, collagen fibres, and proteoglycans.
Sometimes the outer shell develops a tear, allowing the soft inner core to push through to cause a herniated disc. Or the inner core may bulge outwards but not break through the outer shell, resulting in a bulging disc.
Both can press on surrounding nerves and cause pain, numbness, and even weakness.
Sciatic pain happens when the roots of the sciatic nerve in your lower spine become pinched or inflamed. It creates pain that radiates down the nerve into your legs (sciatica). The cause of the pinching is often a herniated disc or spinal stenosis.
As we age, our spinal discs deteriorate, sometimes allowing vertebrae to touch or pinch nerves. This causes pain, and stiffness, and affects our overall flexibility and mobility.
Facet joints are the small joints between each vertebra. They can be damaged either through injury or by arthritic changes. This results in localised back pain that can radiate out from the affected joint as it pinches or irritates surrounding nerves.
The sacroiliac joints join your pelvis to your spine and transfer weight and motion between your lower limbs and upper body.
If these become inflamed, either through injury, arthritis, pregnancy, biomechanical issues, or repetitive strain, they can cause leg and lower back pain, stiffness, and impact mobility.
Myofascial tissue is the collective name for muscle fibres (myo) and the thin layer of connective tissue (fascia) that surround them. These tissues can develop tight or sore spots called ‘trigger points’.
Depending on their location (in the muscle fibres or the fascia), trigger points can cause localised pain and inflammation, or radiate pain across large areas, sometimes quite removed from the offending trigger point.
Muscles in the upper back, shoulder, neck, and lower back are prime locations for trigger points due to the stresses and strains they’re constantly under. This can result in chronic back pain, tension headaches, and restricted mobility.
Chiropractors treat back pain in various ways depending on the cause, symptoms, and the patient’s circumstances.
This is the cornerstone of chiropractic treatment for back pain. Chiropractors typically use hands-on techniques, or adjustments, to manipulate and adjust the spine and spinal joints.
These techniques aim to help alleviate pain, improve alignment, and increase mobility. They are particularly effective for helping alleviate mechanical lower back pain.
Chiropractic manual therapies include soft tissue therapies like massage and myofascial release. These help to reduce muscle tension, improve blood flow, and ease pain.
Chiropractors frequently recommend specific types of rehabilitative exercises to help strengthen core muscles, improve flexibility, strengthen spinal muscles, and limit future injury. Exercises are customised to suit each individual patient and their specific circumstances.
For example, if you have tight hip flexor muscles, these can alter your pelvic alignment and put stress on your lower back, causing back pain and discomfort.
Specific exercises and stretches, like the Hip Flexor Stretch, Standing Quad Stretch, and Supine Hip Flexor Stretch, are often used to help improve flexibility and mobility in hip flexors.
Chiropractic is very much a holistic healthcare discipline. As such, chiropractors often provide counselling and support around posture, lifestyle choices, diet, ergonomics, and daily activities to help patients manage pain and improve long-term health and wellbeing.
Chiropractic help for back pain offers a range of benefits.
It is a non-surgical, holistic approach to managing back pain. Chiropractors treat not just the condition causing the pain, but also offer preventative support to help reduce future incidents.
Treatment plans are personalised to suit your specific condition and requirements..
It can provide effective, drug-free relief from very painful musculoskeletal conditions and improve overall mobility and function.
In addition to treating the underlying source of painful musculoskeletal conditions involving the back, chiropractics is also very much about preventative care. To this end, chiropractors often recommend ways to help prevent back pain from reoccurring.
The role chiropractors can play in helping with back pain is now well recognised, and accepted, in mainstream healthcare. From adjustments and manipulations that target the underlying causes of back pain, to preventative holistic advice and support – a chiropractor can help with back pain in many ways.
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