Here's How To Fix Serious Back Pain

Bob's serious back pain has been a chronic issue for many years but he suddenly started experiencing intense back pain and spasms about two weeks ago. Sometimes this sort of serious back pain can be triggered by an injury but Bob isn't quite sure what caused this intense spike in his back pain.

Bob is absolutely thrilled that the painful spasms were gone after just one visit. Every visit after has focused on reducing pain in the muscles and spine as well as improving his range of motion. You can see how quickly Bob's pain is reduced and his range of motion is improved from just one adjustment.

We take a multidisciplinary approach to treating problems like serious back pain so Dr. Jeff wraps up Bob's session by showing him phase 1 of our low back stability program so he can do the exercises at home. Getting patients out of pain is great but it's only our first step. Dr. Jeff showed Bob some exercises he can do to stabilize his back so he's less likely to have this chronic back pain in the future. This will also allow him to add in more activity and cardiovascular exercise once his lower back is stable.

How To Fix Serious Back Pain

In order to fix a patient's serious back pain, we first have to figure out what's causing the pain. There are many different types of back pain but there are 3 main causes that we can trace back to different parts of the back.

1. Discogenic Back Pain

This type of back pain is caused when the discs between the vertebrae are damaged. These discs may bulge, tear, herniate, and even extrude and irritate the nearby nerves. Discogenic back pain is associated with activities that increase the pressure within the intervertebral disc-like bending forward, sitting, sneezing, and coughing. When we examine a patient experiencing discogenic pain they almost always feel pain when bending forward.

Many people who have sciatica are experiencing this unique type of back pain because of a herniated disc in the lower back. When a herniated disc puts pressure on the sciatic nerve, pain, burning, tingling, and numbness that radiates from the hip to the foot can occur.

Once we know that a patient is experiencing discogenic back pain, we create a custom plan for them that focuses on preventing the herniation from worsening, providing pain relief, and strengthening the muscles around the spine to help prevent disc herniation from reoccurring in the future.

2. Joint-Related Back Pain

This type of back pain occurs when joints in the spine become restricted, adhesed, or degenerated. Each vertebra in the spine has two sets of facet joints to provide support and mobility. Like all joints, these facet joints have cartilage that can become worn and thin preventing normal motion.

As the bone attempts to adjust to having less support than normal, bone spurs can grow and inflammation can occur as osteoarthritis develops in the facet joints. The bone spurs that may grow to try to compensate for lost cartilage can pinch nerves and cause back pain.

When we have a patient who is dealing with joint-related pain, our goal is to relieve the pain and help support the joint through deep tissue work and exercises that help strengthen the surrounding muscles. Using correct posture is one of the most important things you can do to keep your spine aligned and prevent future issues. If you're sitting for long periods of time, it's important to make sure that you're sitting correctly so you're not doing further damage to your spine.

3. Muscle-Related Back Pain

This type of back pain occurs when discs and joints send signals to muscles to tighten to protect the weakened area. You may also hear this type of pain referred to as myalgia pain. This type of pain can also occur from strain, overuse, and poor posture.

We see back muscle strains occur as a result of lifting excessive amounts of weight, not lifting correctly, sitting with poor posture, or repetitive motions like swinging a golf club. We also see this kind of back pain in patients who have been in a car accident.

If your back pain is muscle-related, you'll have pain that is localized to one area and does not radiate to other areas of your body. Your back may feel tender or even spasm. You'll likely feel stiff as your muscles tense up to try to protect the affected area. This kind of pain can come on suddenly and it usually feels better when you rest the affected muscles.

When we have a patient who is dealing with muscle-related back pain, our goal is to relieve the pain and relax the muscles to prevent further pain. Chiropractors have many different methods we can use to accomplish this including dry needling, class 4 laser therapy, deep tissue work, and e-stim.

As you can see, the way we fix serious back pain differs from patient to patient. The treatment you'll need depends on the cause of your serious back pain and what other symptoms you may have like sciatica pain. Our first priority is to relieve back pain and ensure that our patients walk out of their first visit in less pain than they came in with.

Your treatment plan for serious back pain may include a variety of treatments such as deep tissue work, spinal decompression, dry needling, class 4 laser therapy, and e-stim. Once we fix the serious back pain, we'll work with you to show you how you can stabilize your back to prevent injuries and back pain in the future. We love helping patients feel better faster but what we love even more is for them to stay clear of pain in the future.

If you're experiencing serious back pain, click here or call (410) 296-7700 to schedule your consultation at our Towson office! We can't wait to fix your serious back pain and help you prevent that pain from returning in the future.