Can a Chiropractor Help With Lower Back Pain?

Chiropractors are a great resource for effectively treating lower back pain. Chiropractors use hands-on methods to treat lower back pain without surgery or medicine. Often, people start feeling better after just one chiropractic treatment.

Common Lower Back Pain Conditions: What’s the Cause of Pain?

 

There are many causes of lower back pain. Torn or pulled muscles or ligaments can be the cause. Strains happen with muscles stretch too far and tear. Sprains happen when ligaments over-stretch and tear.

Damage to intervertebral discs, compression of nerve roots or improper movement of spinal joints can also be to blame. Sometimes, this damage comes from a sudden injury. People hurt their lower backs in car accidents or suffer sports injuries. They may also hurt their lower backs while lifting heavy objects or twisting the spine while lifting. The damage can also develop slowly over time from repetitive movements or poor posture.

Symptoms of Lower Back Pain

 

If your lower back hurts, you have lower back pain. Simple, right? Not really. The symptoms of lower back pain affect more than just the lower back. Often, problems that occur in the lower back affect the entire body. For example, a lower back injury might pinch a nerve, sending shooting pain down into a leg or foot. Nerve injury can also cause numbness, stinging or tingling sensations.

People also compensate for the pain by changing the way they move. Soon, the lower back pain affects their entire bodies. Dull, aching pain spreads to other parts of the back, the buttocks, legs and feet. The pain often feels worse after prolonged sitting or after waking up in the morning. It may seem to get better with movement, or it might remain constant no matter which position you’re in.

How a Chiropractor Treats Lower Back Pain

 

The first step toward treating lower back pain? Properly diagnosing the problem. This can be difficult, however. For example, a torn lumbar disc can feel like a pulled muscle. And the symptoms may even be the same—pain, muscle spasms and inflammation of the lower back.

To make a diagnosis, chiropractors perform physical and neurological examinations. Your chiropractor may ask you to walk or move. He will watch the way you move. He may also touch the affected areas to feel for signs of damage.

After your chiropractor has diagnosed the problem, he’ll likely treat it through manual therapy. He might try spinal manipulation—also called chiropractic adjustment—delivering a gentile, but high-velocity thrust to precisely the right place in the lower back. Your chiropractor might also try chiropractic mobilization. He may move and stretch the muscles and joints to increase the range of motion in those areas.

How We Can Help

 

At Performance Chiropractic and Sport Rehab Clinic, we treat people with lower back pain. We help them by returning the spine to its natural alignment through gentile manipulation. Once the spine is realigned, the surrounding structures in the lower back can relax. This will also your body to heal on its own.