How many people deal with some type of lower back pain? Well, according to statistics 8 out of 10 people over the age of 30 will suffer from some type of lower back pain.
Back pain comes in many different types of varieties of stiffness, aches, and can lead all the way up to sweat producing, back curling, searing pain that can bring you to your knees in a heartbeat.
But what exactly is and what causes lower back pain?
Low back pain is a complicated issue but bear with me for a minute and let me explain how it works and how pain develops.
The lower back is built with 5 bones called vertebra. These bones are designed to protect the spinal cord and its emerging spinal nerves. There are five individual bones that make up the lumbar spine. The fifth bone sits on top of a triangular bone called the sacrum (sake-rum).
In between each bone is a pad that protects each bone from 'banging' on top of one another. This pad is called a disc. The disc is a cartilage material whose fibers are built in circles. In the middle of this disc there is a jelly substance called the nucleus pulposus.
Now think how it would be if we just tried to stack up 5 bones on top of each other....probably wouldn't be too stable. That's where the muscles come in. Muscles are the stabilizers that hold the bones together so they don't fall apart. But more importantly the muscles act as shock absorbers to protect the bones and the disc from force and trauma. Just like the shock absorbers of your car they are put in to absorb the force from the road to keep it away from your cars chasse and eventually you.
The muscles without an electrical supply are useless. The muscle gets an electrical supply from the brain and spinal cord. This electricity or nerve impulses allow the muscle to turn on (contract) and turn off (relax).
When the never impulse begins to slow up and the muscle doesn't get the message as fast as it can the muscle loses its ability to absorb any force coming into that area. That force if not absorbed it will continue to the bones and the disc. If repeated force, day after day, hour after hour, is entered into the bones and discs, that area will begin to break down because it's not designed to absorb this force. The faster the never impulse the faster the muscle can contract the more force absorbed. The more force absorbed in the muscle the less force is placed on the bone therefore nor pain or discomfort.
But when that force goes into the joint over and over, day after day the joint will begin to break down. The bones and the joint space will begin to degenerate over time. This is called arthritis.
How many people do you know have or have been told they have arthritis?
When you go to the doctor and they take an X-Ray and it shows degeneration you'll be given the diagnosis of arthritis. But here is where I choose to get off the misdiagnosis carousel. When you see the degeneration or arthritis in your lower back (or any other joint) the doctor will say, "Your problem is due to the arthritis in your lower back." I'm here to tell you that this is wrong. Now it's true that you may have arthritis in your lower back but please understand this is where the damage ENDED UP, not where it BEGAN! Because your muscles couldn't properly absorb the force that force continued to go into joint and over time it began to breakdown.
Let me throw this out to you.
Find me an 8 year old with lower back pain. Okay, find me a 12 year old with a lower back problem. You see, the reason why you can find any children with any lower back problems is that there neurological system is working at top levels and therefore the muscles work the way it was designed.
Think about this for a moment. Let's take a 25 year old body builder and let's take a 8 year old young boy. Who is going to do better with repetitive jumping off a four or five foot ledge? Now think about this...the body builder has muscles bigger than the 8 year olds entire body, but you and I both know that the 8 year old will do better with this repetitive jumping scenario. Even though the body builder's muscles are three to five times the size of the young boy it's the ability of the nervous system of turning on so that the muscle can absorb the force.
You've already seen young kids jump down from incredible heights without even giving it a second thought. When's that last time you stepped off a curb without looking and felt that jolt shoot up you back?
The reason for this is that the 8 year olds nervous system can turn the muscle on faster than the body builder. Now if the body builder trained for this they too can develop the muscle to absorb force just like the 8 year old. The point that I'm attempting to make is that it's the ability of the nervous system to turn that muscle on is the key in protecting any joint in the body from repetitive force.
Do you know how many lower back cases there are that keep returning. Pain returning after treatment, pain after years and even pain after surgery because they never got to the real reason why the pain came on in the first place.
After a extremely through examination my goal is to locate the area where the neurological system is not firing properly so that I can eliminate the short circuit. Once found and corrected we can then develop the proper protocols to begin to rebuild that area so that the pain and dysfunction will never return.
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