There’s three major things about low back pain that we focus on in this office. The first thing, proper alignment: we want to see that the spine is nice and straight up in there, that there’s not a twisting, or anything’s jammed and stuck at a place. The other thing that we look for is proper curves. We want to see that we have these three major curves in the spine, because they offer shock absorption, as well as the body’s ability to start to dissipate the forces in the stresses and strains that we experience on a day to day basis.
The next thing that we look for when it comes to the spine, is the muscles. Now there’s two major problems when it comes to the muscles. One there can be spasm, tight muscles, thick muscles that are stiff and restricted. Or the muscle can be too weak. Either one is a problem, because it’s not going to be supporting the body, any hard tissue or the bones as well, when that is the case with the muscles.
The discs are the “shock absorbers” of the spine, they separate the vertebrae, and allow our bodies to flex and move and groove and, and do all the things that we’re designed to do. And in fact, we need that motion to nourish those discs and keep them healthy and plump.
One of the unfortunate situations that can occur that we hope that everybody avoids is disc degeneration. Now the disc is surrounded by fibers. It’s a round, plump pancake with a gel in the center. And what can happen is low fibers start to tear or break down and the nucleus will start to displace. Sometimes that nucleus can displace bad enough that the disc actually starts to bulge or herniate. And that’s not a situation we want to see our patients getting into. In fact, taking care of the problem earlier on will help prevent disc degeneration and will help prevent the disc from breaking down or herniating. And that’s where we prefer our patients to be.
When there’s proper alignment, though, you can see when even when there’s a disc problem, we’re still getting good signal. But as the disc or as the joint gets stuck, or moves out of place, it starts to interfere with those signals and causes a breakdown in the communication which is not good and something to be avoided. That’s why we find it very important that we focus on the disk and correcting that situation.
When it comes to correcting that situation, that’s going to be for another video. But if you know anybody that’s experiencing any back or disc problems, send them in or give them this link. Give us a call. We’re here to help!