Do You Have Back Pain?

BACK PAIN IN BOYNTON BEACH

Everyone learns at a young age that your spine is one of the most important parts of your body. Without it, you could not keep yourself upright or even stand up. It gives your body structure and support. It allows you to move about freely and bend with flexibility. The spine protects your spinal cord, a column of nerves that connects your brain to every other part of your body. This is why it is so important for you to stay ahead of any signs of back pain!

What’s the cause of back pain? When the vertebrae in the spine are misaligned, its effects are felt throughout your entire body. Often the first signal there is a problem, is back pain.

Just about every human being experiences back pain at some point in their lives, including you. In fact, you could be someone who lives every day with some sort of chronic pain originating in your back.

Pain is a symptom of a back problem. The common use of over-the-counter and prescription drugs can mask your pain but does little to nothing to solve your problem. Therefore, when the medications wear off, your pain returns.

In addition, by not addressing the problem causing the pain. It leads to additional injury or damage, which then results in a more serious problem – and yes, more pain.

As a matter of fact, back pain is the No. 1 cause of job disability. Chronic back problems can be incapacitating leading to job loss, over-use and addiction to pain medications, as well as opening the door to mental health issues.

What Causes Back Pain?

The back is a complex assembly of bones, discs, tendons, muscles, nerves, ligaments, and more. As noted above, the primary component in your back is your spine. The spine itself is comprised of many moving parts that work with the tendons, ligaments, muscles, and nerves to allow you to stand erect, twist, and move throughout the day.

When one of the parts of the spine is irritated or damaged, continued stress to that area compounds the injury, damages other elements of the back, and worsens the problem. That is why masking the pain with medications often increases the scope of the problem and results in even greater pain.

The most common causes of back pain include:

• Disc bulges or herniations

Not all bulges and herniations cause pain, but once they do, it can be severe. Depending on the type and location of the bulge or hernia, nerve roots can be irritated resulting in shooting pains, numbness, tingling, or weakness in your legs, feet, arms, and hands. If that is the case in your situation, do not delay treatment. Put off treatment too long and problems advance, and the condition can be difficult to reverse.

• SUBLAXATIONS

Sublaxations are vertebrae that are out of position in the spine. In addition to being caused by injury, subluxations can also occur because of muscular sprains and tendon or ligament strains.

A chiropractor is one of the few professionals trained in specifically correcting a sublaxation.

• Muscular sprains and tendon or ligament strains

Sprains and strains most often occur when people work muscles, tendons, and ligaments in ways that they are not used to using them.

Pushing your body beyond its norm leads to irritated, swollen, bruised or torn muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

Because these are all intertwined with the spine, incorrectly lifting a heavy object, unusual twisting motions, or riding your bicycle for several miles the first day of nice weather causes sprains and strains that result in back pain. Poor posture plays a part in developing back problems and activating back pain.

• Stress

Chronic stress has many physiological effects on the body that, over time, result in heart disease, digestive issues, depression, obesity, and back pain. Relative to stress, back pain is the result of tension that contracts the muscles to create ‘trigger points” that become increasingly painful.

Treating Back Pain

Most back pain has one common issue – a misalignment or damage of the vertebra in the spine.

As healthcare practitioners specializing in the spine, chiropractors first identify the exact cause(s) of the pain as well as determine a plan to relieve the pain. In addition to chiropractic adjustments on the spine, patients often benefit from other treatments such as cold laser and massage therapies.

Chiropractic care takes a conservative, effective, and non-invasive approach to the treatment of back pain. It simplifies the necessary treatment and can prevent the need for surgical procedures.

For this reason, chiropractic care is known as the first of the most effective treatments for various causes of back pain.

If you have back pain in Boynton Beach, our Boynton Beach chiropractic team can help!