Low Back Pain- Special Report
By
If you or some one you know suffers from low back pain, you’re not alone. In fact, over 85% of the people in the U.S. will experience low back pain some time in their lives. Over 5 million 4 hundred thousand people become disabled due to low back pain, causing a loss of 93 million lost work days a year. That’s a vacation no one wants to take. Those are the statistics. You are not a statistic. If back pain is keeping you from doing the things you want to do, statistics don’t matter. You have questions.
The main questions are
How long will I have to live with this?
What can I do to get rid of this back pain?
Will I become disabled?
Is surgery my only option?
Is it a good option?
What else can I do?
This special report is designed to help answer all of these questions and a whole lot more.
How long your pain lasts depends on what’s causing it. The doctor will use the tools available to pinpoint the cause of your pain. Physical examination, x-rays are routinely performed. Specialized tests like MRI or CT scans may also be required.
Consider this:
70% of low back pain is caused by sprain/strains. These are caused by trauma, falls, pulled muscles, etc. These injuries heal relatively quickly and not all of them require treatment. Most research says that simple sprain/strains should resolve within 4 to 6 weeks.
Treatment options include:
-Chiropractic Care
-Ice
-Physical
Therapy/Exercises,
-Passive pain management from Electric Muscle Stimulation/TENS Unit
-Pain relievers/ anti-inflammatory medications
-Massage Therapy
-Rest
10% of Low Back Pain is caused by Degenerative Disc Disease and
4% are Disc Bulge/Herniation cases. The rest of the low back pain cases are caused by osteoporosis, fractures, spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis and a few rare conditions.
Disc Degeneration is when the discs (the cushions between the bones) become thin. Thinning of the discs allows bone spurs to form and leads to chronic pinched nerves in the low back. Disc Bulge/Herniation is when the jelly in the center of the discs starts to bulge, putting pressure directly on the nerve. Unfortunately these don’t go away in 4-6 weeks.
People suffering from these conditions see their health steadily getting worse. They get flare-ups of pain that range from mild to severe. The severe flare-ups leave the victims lying on the floor, unable to walk, unable to get up from a chair or put on their own socks without excruciating pain. These patients often have sciatica (pain down their leg). Their treatment options are the same as above with three additions.
-Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression
-Spinal Injections
-Surgery
When considering treatment recommendations it is best to start with the most conservative treatment. By conservative treatment, I mean treatments that have the least amount of risk. Lower risk of increasing the problem and the highest rate of success for getting rid of the problem. For this report, I’ll start back wards with the least conservative treatment, Surgery.
Back Surgery is one option. The goal is to take pressure off a nerve or stabilize two or more bones that move too much. Unfortunately only 20% of back surgeries are considered successful after two years. The persons pain returns.
Spinal injections are another option. Epidurals and spinal blocks both fit into this category. This approach is aimed at reducing the swelling and blocking the pain signals. These are most effective if they can reduce the swelling in the nerve. If a nerve is being pinched it swells, reduce the swelling then reduces the severity of the nerve pinch.
Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression is a relatively new technology, approved by the FDA in 2001. It is a type of traction that thickens the disc by drawing water and nutrients into the jelly center. It works through a pull-release-pull model to create a negative pressure in the disc. Research shows this to be up to 86% effective for treating disc herniation, degenerative disc disease and facet syndrome. It was developed and tested by neurosurgeons and medical researchers.
Chiropractic Care is based on the idea that alignment of the vertebra and the structure of the spine effect back pain and health in general. A number of studies show the effectiveness of Chiropractic care for low back pain including this one from the Magna Report in 1993 “On the evidence, particularly the most scientific valid clinical studies, spinal manipulation performed by chiropractors is shown to be more effective than alternative treatments for low back pain.”
In our office we use a multi-faceted conservative approach and get amazing results.
Our Low Back Care plans include:
Chiropractic Adjustments
Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression
Electric muscle stimulation/cryotherapy
Massage Therapy
Stretching and Strengthening Exercises
Home Exercise Program/lifestyle counseling
Health and Wellness University Program
Our goal, like yours, is to achieve long term correction of your low back pain. We want to keep it from coming back and keep you doing the things that you love.
Patrick Lowe D.C.
Want to know more:
© 2009 all rights reserved
Lowe Chiropractic & Wellness
Louisville’s Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression Headquarters
10306 Shelbyville Rd
Louisville, KY 40223
www.lowechiro.com 502-245-7334
Dr. Patrick Lowe is a well respected leader in the Chiropractic profession. In addition to being a Doctor of Chiropractic, he is a speaker, author, and chiropractic consultant. When he is not working he is active spending time with his family, teaching Judo and Hapkido at Hwang’s Martial Arts and is an active volunteer with the Cub Scouts of America at Southeast Christian Church. Dr. Lowe helped start a mentoring program for new chiropractors. Always on the cutting edge of health technology, Dr. Lowe is now bringing the technology of Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression to his community.
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