Chiropractic Treatment for Low Back Pain in Franklin, TN
According to research, up to 80% of all Americans will experience low back pain in their lifetime. In fact, with over 10% of the population – 31 million Americans – struggling with this condition at any one time, it is the #1 cause of disability in the U.S. The daily stress that our spine endures as we walk, sit, and move through life is why low back pain is so common.
There are many causes of low back pain, but poor posture is one of the most common. Over time, your body positioning can lead to muscle weakness, stretching of the ligaments, and reduction of fluid content in the spinal discs, which are the cushions between each spinal bone. These postural problems can create muscular compensations and put unnecessary pressure on your spine. Other common causes of low back pain are muscle strains, disc injury, sciatica, spinal stenosis, and abnormal spinal curvatures, to name just a few.
Back pain can be acute or chronic. Acute back pain can last from a few days to a few weeks and is usually caused by something traumatic such as a motor vehicle collision or lifting something improperly. Chronic back pain is pain that lasts longer than three months.
How We Treat Low Back Pain in Franklin, TN
Comprehensive Consultation and Examination
Treating low back pain starts with a complete medical history and review of all the potential mechanisms that could have created your pain. At Mission Health Center, this happens with a doctor who is really going to listen to what’s been going on so they can understand how this pain is affecting your life. A thorough chiropractic examination follows your consultation to determine the exact origin and underlying causes of the pain. A spinal exam includes assessing your ranges of movement, feeling the spinal bones and muscles surrounding your spine, and determining areas of restriction, swelling of the muscles, or any tenderness/pain you may be experiencing. Based on the examination results, spinal x-rays may be necessary to understand and identify a potential underlying cause, such as a shifting of the spine.
Specific Chiropractic Care
At Mission Health Center, specific chiropractic care is the most important thing we offer for patients suffering from low back pain. Most low back pain is created by a shifting of the spine referred to as a spinal subluxation. A subluxation is when your spine has moved out of proper positioning and alignment, stretching the muscles and discs and compressing the nerves that exit between the bones. All of these actions can lead to symptoms like pain in the lower back or pain down the legs. Our goal as specific corrective chiropractors is to remove pressure from these nerves by restoring proper spinal alignment through a chiropractic adjustment. An adjustment restores function to your spine and allows your body to heal.
Custom Therapeutic Exercise Plan
Exercising regularly – both cardio and strength training – can help to reduce low back pain. Regular exercise increases your flexibility and movement, improves your posture, and strengthens weak muscles. We believe in specific stretching and strengthening plans designed specifically for you and your case to increase spinal movement and develop core stability to help you improve your functional deficiencies. Not only will we recommend therapeutic exercises to do in our clinic, but we will also send you home with a plan to perform at home to get better faster and get the results you need.
Spinal Decompression
Within your low back, you have multiple structures that can produce and create pain – muscles, nerves, shifting of the spine, and most importantly the spinal disc. The disc is the shock-absorber, the cushion between each spinal bone. At Mission Health Center, we use specialized techniques and technology called Spinal Decompression. This treatment slowly and safely stretches the spine to reduce inflammation and pain and restore discs that have swollen, slipped, bulged, or even herniated to a degree. These disc injuries create lower back pain and pain that runs down into the buttock and the legs.
Spinal Decompression works by slowly stretching the lower back. This slow, pumping type of stretch will open the disc spaces and allow oxygen, nutrients, and water to pull into the disc, allowing it to heal and start to decrease the disc bulge that could be creating the low back pain.
As part of our technique to help improve your health and decrease your pain, we combine a specific chiropractic adjustment and therapeutic exercises following your spinal decompression treatment to help correct this problem and prevent it from happening again.
Common Causes of Low Back Pain in Franklin, TN
Bulged Lumbar Discs
The spinal disc is the shock absorber or cushion between individual vertebrae. I describe discs like jelly doughnuts. The disc’s exterior fibers are the “doughnut,” and the gelatinous nucleus is the “jelly.”
Over time, our discs can wear down and dehydrate. When that happens, those fibers tear, especially if you have an injury, pick something up incorrectly, or get into an accident. If those fibers tear enough, the gelatinous nucleus takes the path of least resistance and moves toward the outside of the disc, creating a bulge. That bulge puts pressure on the nerves that travel through the spine, creating pain in your low back that can radiate down your leg.
Herniated Lumbar Discs
A herniated disc is the progression of a bulged disc. When the outside fibers tear, the nucleus moves to the outside of the disc. If the fibers tear enough, the nucleus can actually break through the disc’s exterior and sit on a nerve ending. Herniated discs are more painful than bulged discs and create more leg pain than low back pain. When the disc ruptures, it takes the pressure off the low back area but creates pain down into the leg.
A natural way for the herniated disc to resolve itself is a process called phagocytosis – your body sees the nucleus as a foreign object, so it will inflame to try to help eat up that nucleus and reabsorb it. If that doesn’t work, it can create pain that is usually enough to cause people to start to look into surgery. We try to treat herniated discs naturally, but surgery may be the only option after a specific course of treatment.
Degenerative Disc Disease
Degenerative Disc Disease is an age-related condition where the discs begin to break down. (Obesity, smoking, and work that is hard on the spine can also contribute to Degenerative Disc Disease.) Like a bulging or herniated disc, as discs become dehydrated and break down, they lose their natural height. A fully hydrated disc is big enough to create proper openings for the nerves to emerge from the spine and travel throughout the body. When the disc starts to shrink, the foramen – the holes that the nerves come out of – begin to get smaller irritating the nerves. This creates low back pain and potentially radiating pain.
Unfortunately, we can’t reverse Degenerative Disc Disease, but we can slow it. This is why it’s so important to get treatment as soon as possible whenever you’re dealing with low back pain.
Muscle Strain
Muscle strains are the most common causes of low back pain. They tend to be dull and achy, and the pain is intensified with movement or putting yourself into certain positions. Usually, the pain stays localized in the lower back versus radiating into your legs or other areas. Sudden activity, repetitive motion, poor posture, or weak core muscles cause muscle strains.
Muscle strains usually resolve in four to six weeks, but we want to address them early if possible because they are often a symptom of a more root problem. At Mission Health Center, we always try to attack the root cause of the problem versus just addressing the symptoms.
Subluxation
Subluxation is the dysfunction that chiropractors are looking for and that they treat. Subluxation is dysfunction in or misalignment of the spine, creating pressure on the nerves. This stress on the nerves results in low back pain and other function-related symptoms.
Specific chiropractic adjustments are the only solution to a subluxation. You can do all of the stretches and exercises you want, but if a vertebra is stuck out of alignment or is not moving correctly, you’ll continue to have issues until you get that motion back or correct the alignment.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can I do to relieve my low back pain in Franklin, Tennessee?
We talked a lot about ways to relieve your low back pain in the sections above, but the BEST THING you can do is reach out to our office or another professional to get an exam and find out what is causing the lower back pain. The cause of your low back pain will determine what will help relieve it.
How do I know if my low back pain is serious?
All back pain is serious. We don’t want any dysfunction in your spine or your body overall. If by ‘serious’ you mean a medical emergency, if you’re noticing any type of nerve issues, such as tingling, numbness, weakness, and inability to control your bladder or bowels, those are a step above just general low back pain. That would be something where you need to consult with a professional.
What causes low back pain?
There are many causes of low back pain. It could be acute, like an injury or an accident. It could be chronic or long-term, like improper body mechanics, poor posture, or weak core muscles. It’s important to address not just what’s been going on in the last couple of days but also what’s been going on over the previous weeks, months, or years.
What is better for low back pain: a chiropractor or massage?
It depends on what is causing the lower back pain, but I always recommend going to a chiropractor first. They will be able to address or assess whether the problem is coming from the spine – the misalignment or dysfunction of the vertebrae putting pressure on nerves creating the muscle problems – or if it’s just a muscle issue. If it’s just a muscle issue, then soft tissue and massage work will help quite a bit. If the tight muscle or the muscle spasm is a symptom of pressure on the nerves at the spinal level, the muscle will continue to be a problem until you take the stress off the nerve at the spinal level. You may be able to get the muscle to relax or feel better in the short term, but if you don’t address the root cause, it will continue to come back.
How can you tell if your spine is out of alignment?
The best way to determine if your spine is out of alignment is to seek help from a chiropractor who is trained to identify, assess, and correct misalignments. If you have some type of spinal issue, muscle tightness, spasms, or nerve pain, there will usually be a subluxation or a spinal misalignment. The best thing to do would be to visit a chiropractor and have them do a comprehensive exam.