Low Back Pain
Low Back Pain
Low Back Pain Help in Toronto
- Low back pain affects 84% of people at some point in their lives. Stiff, painful joints can make daily life challenging.
- In 50% of people, low back pain subsides spontaneously within two weeks, and in 90% of people, it resolves within 12 weeks (about 3 months).
- It becomes chronic (lasting more than 2 months) and causes long-term disability in around 10% of people.
- It costs people, businesses, and the healthcare system time and money for diagnosis, treatment, and time lost from work.
- It recurs if not treated early on, (70% of people within the year)
- Herniated discs cause persistent low back pain in one to two percent of the population aged 35 to 45 years.
What Factors Contribute to Lower Back Pain?
- Limping due to a foot, knee, or hip condition
- Excessive exercise, with or without proper training
- Inappropriate types of exercises
- Scoliosis (lateral deviation of the spine)
- Flat feet and overpronation
- Emotional distress or major life changes
- Weak back extensor or core muscles
- Muscle imbalances due to a lack of stretching and regular exercise
- Inadequate calcium and vitamin D
- Work that involves sitting for many hours a day
- Work that involves driving many hours a day
How Can I Prevent Low Back Pain?
Early diagnosis, treatment, and lifestyle changes are important.
Non-Modifiable Risk Factors
- Increases with age
- Genetics – Congenital abnormalities or inherited variations
- Trauma due to car accidents or falls
- Excess curvature in the lower back
Modifiable Risk Factors
- Lack of physical activity and inadequate weight-bearing exercise
- Smoking (which affects tissue blood supply and nutrition)
- Sleep problems and chronic tiredness
- Obesity
- Sport and exercise-related injuries
- Repeated episodes of low back pain and incomplete rehabilitation of past injuries
- Improper lifting techniques and lifting injuries
- Work postures that involve repeated bending, leaning, or twisting to one side, or prolonged standing/walking
- Poor ergonomic positioning at work and at home
- Work that involves sitting for many hours a day or standing in one place for hours
- Exposure to spinal stresses such as vibratory forces seen with prolonged driving (truck drivers, jackhammer operators)
- Work-related psychosocial stressors, anxiety, and depression
- Trauma –sudden or cumulative trauma, such as due to sports,
- Poor coping strategies
- Low socioeconomic status and a lower level of education are associated with disability
- Muscles can be overused. When spinal joints are misaligned and lose some of their range of motion, arthritis worsens.
Low Back Pain & Spinal Arthritis
Spinal osteoarthritis is a “wear and tear” disease that happens gradually over time and impairs our ability to move and be functional. While we may not always feel pain when arthritis is present in the spine, we may experience:
- Stiffness
- Motion restriction
- Referred pain
Our spine protects our spinal cord, allows us to bear weight, and allows us to be upright and mobile. When spinal joints lose their normal joint alignment and their range of motion, arthritis is likely to worsen.
If you cannot bend forward to put on your socks in the morning, or if your neck range of motion is so restricted that you cannot look over your shoulder to see your blind spot when driving, then you may be suffering from the effects of spinal osteoarthritis. As a result, the quality and safety of your life may be at risk.
Following each episode of back pain or spasm that you endure, additional tissue damage may be left behind around the spinal joints, membranes, nerve sheaths, spinal nerves, spinal ligaments, and associated muscles, tendons, and fascia.
Spinal degeneration can lead to spinal stenosis (narrowing of the central spinal canal), myelopathy (pressure on the central nervous system), radiculopathy (pressure on individual nerves exiting the spine, and spondylolisthesis (most commonly at L4 vertebral body will slip forward on L5) in some people.
Spine Changes with Low Back Pain & Spinal Osteoarthritis:
- Low-grade inflammation with potential to create degenerative changes
- Tissue damage around nerves, spinal facet joints, and muscles due to inflammation
- Joint damage after sustained mechanical loads
- Joint cartilage damage and synovial fluid changes
- Loss of range of motion in the joints
- Loss of overall range of motion in your neck or back
- Postural alterations in your spine
- Sensitization of pain receptors and nerves, which lead to chronic pain
- Inability for joints to maintain and repair cartilage with age
How Chiropractic May Help Low Back Pain:
How does a healthy joint go from moving well to becoming arthritic and stiff?
This is an important question.
Most health professionals recognize that good posture and staying physically active are important for good health. While these are particularly important to maintain throughout one’s lifetime, Chiropractors are unique in that they focus on preserving:
- Ability to maximize the spine’s overall range of motion—e.g., to bend or rotate their neck.
- Preserving the motion of each vertebra/spinal segment
- Preserving the joint motions of all the bones in the hands, arms, feet, and legs
If your ability to:
- Turn your neck to check your blind spot when driving
- Get into and out of a car with ease
- Bend forward to put on your shoes and socks
- Walk freely without pain
- Climb and descend stairs
- Have good balance without fear of falling
Then consider making a Chiropractic Spine/Joint examination appointment.
It is thought that the degenerative changes of the spinal facet joints is often secondary to the loss of disc hydration and disc height. When this occurs, mechanical loads on the facet joints change and spinal degeneration accelerates.
Facts about Low Back Pain & Spinal Osteoarthritis
The prevalence of internal disc tears is exceedingly high, (disc annular tears are found in 50% of lumbar discs under 35 years of age), they may or may not cause any pain.
People who have sustained significant trauma or injuries to their joints develop osteoarthritis in peripheral and spinal joints within months of an injury.
Certain types of degenerative spine and arthritic diseases run in families and may show up earlier than expected age-related arthritic changes. Bunions, Hallux Valgus and Scoliosis are some examples.
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