Does Your Back Hurt?If you have back pain you know how debilitating it can be. Back pain is extremely common with 80% of people experiencing back pain at some point in their lives.
In fact, back pain is now the single leading cause of disability worldwide.
So if you have back pain, what can you do about it?
Well, here is 5 simple steps to help you conquer that nagging back injury.
Nutrition can play a major role in chronic conditions like lower back pain. Minimizing your intake of processed foods containing trans fats, sugar, gluten, etc. can make a big difference in the amount of inflammation your body is producing.
Dietary changes don’t have to happen overnight. The important thing is to start. Pick one thing on the list and commit to doing that one for now. Cutting out processed foods is a good place to start.
Make sure you’re getting plenty of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to chronic lower back pain, so make sure that your getting your 20 minutes of sun on your face and arms every day and also it may be necessary for you to take a vitamin D supplement.
In my experience, regularly sleeping on your stomach can create severe damage in your neck and back. If you are a stomach sleeper make sure you make the change to your side or back as quickly as possible.
If you are a stomach sleeper, tonight, make the decision to begin to sleep on your side. It is very difficult to move from your stomach (the worst) to sleeping on your back (the best). Remember, if your back hurts in this side sleeping position, you can place a pillow between your knees to alleviate pressure on the lower back.
A sedentary lifestyle of sitting around all day has been linked to lower back pain. The best exercise is the one that you will do consistently. Whether it is swimming, fast walking, Pilates, yoga or another exercise program, the key is consistency. Exercise has been shown to improve lower back pain.
When the spine is not properly aligned due to accidents and injuries, lower back pain can frequently develop. Scientific research tells us that Chiropractic adjustments are effective for helping people with lower back problems.
Chiropractic care has also been shown to be more cost-effective than the medical approach of drugs or surgery.
In addition, chiropractic patients report a greater level of satisfaction with chiropractic care, compared to the medical approach.
When choosing a chiropractic approach it is important to consider the goal of the approach. An upper cervical chiropractic approach is focused on long-term stability of the spine. The goal is not being adjusted, but staying in alignment. It is not about being adjusted, thousands of times. It’s about getting the spine back into a normal balanced position and keeping it that way as long as possible. Achieving postural balance and maintaining that position for long periods of time leads to improved posture, strength and spinal stability.
Along with chiropractic care some healthcare facilities offer physical rehabilitation exercise programs to supplement their chiropractic adjustments.
This type of physical rehabilitation is helpful in improving functional movement, such as sitting, standing, walking, lifting, etc.
Frequently these types of programs will focus on improving muscular strength, flexibility, balance, range of motion and overall mobility.
Now is the time for you to take a massive amount of action!
Without you taking control of your health and the decisions you make when it comes to your body, you will likely continue to suffer with chronic conditions like lower back pain.
To schedule your NUCCA evaluation, click here.
Want to hear from people like you? Check out our reviews here.
Dr. Pete Tsiglieris of Advanced Spinal Care in Redwood City, California is an Upper Cervical Specialist trained by the National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association (NUCCA). His upper cervical clinic also serves San Mateo, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Carlos, and Sunnyvale. They are uniquely trained to correct problems in the upper cervical spine (upper neck). This vital area is intimately connected to the central nervous system and problems in this area have been shown to be an underlying cause of a variety of different health problems, including migraines and other headaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, neck pain, back pain and shoulder pain and weakness. More information can be found on our website at https://bayareanuccacare.com/
Chiropractic Has Never Been about Bad BacksIn 1895 Daniel David Palmer came on the health care scene as, medicine was leaving an era of proclaimed cure-alls to pursue more scientific investigation into the treatment of disease.
According to the Palmer Chiropractic College’s website:
“D.D. Palmer reasoned that the body had an ample supply of natural healing power transmitted through the nervous system. If a single organ was sick, it must not be receiving its normal nerve supply. That led to the premise of spinal misalignment, or subluxation, and from there to a procedure for adjusting the vertebrae. D.D. performed his first adjustments in 1895, relieving one man of deafness and another person of heart trouble. Arrangements were made to train others in the application of the chiropractic principle. The Palmer School and Cure was founded in 1897 and was later incorporated under the laws of Iowa. The school later became the Palmer School of Chiropractic.”
So as you can see, there was never a mention of bad backs. On the contrary, the first 2 people to receive a chiropractic adjustment had hearing problems and heart problems.
Now, I’m not claiming that chiropractic care is a cure for all deafness or all heart problems. But, over the past hundred plus years chiropractic patients have seen amazing changes in their health, including resolution of hearing, heart problems, and even breathing conditions such as influenza and pneumonia.
According to Wikipedia, the 1918 flu epidemic, was devastating. It infected 500 million people across the world and killed 50 to 100 million of them, which was 3 to 5 percent of the world's population at the time making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.
During that time, chiropractic was a fledgling healthcare approach that was having little impact on the world. But that all changed when people started to notice that chiropractors, their families and their patients weren’t dying from the flu like everyone else.
Disease statistics from across the country revealed that chiropractic patients were surviving at remarkable numbers. And as a result of that, chiropractic practices and schools began to flourish. This also resulted in licenses to practice chiropractic being granted in Texas and other states.
Here’s an example from the statistics:
| Influenza | Cases | Deaths |
| Medical treatment | 10,000 | 950 |
| Chiropractic care | 10,000 | 25 |
| Pneumonia | Cases | Deaths |
| Medical treatment | 10,000 | 6400 |
| Chiropractic care | 10,000 | 100 |
You can see the incredible difference chiropractic care was making in the immune systems and health of people from that time.
Just to summarize, if you had pneumonia or the flu and were treated by a medical doctor in 1918, you had a 36% chance of dying.
If you were under chiropractic care, you had less than 1% chance of dying.
For another example, in Oklahoma 233 patients who medical doctors had done everything they could for and basically were told they had no hope of recovering. Of those 233, all but 25 were saved with chiropractic care.
So even the worst of the worst were seeing the benefits of chiropractic care and that continues today.
Birth injuries, falls, car accidents, sports injuries, and other traumatic injuries lead to a tearing loose of connective tissue (muscles, tendons, ligaments) that holds the spine in place.
This allows the spine to breakdown and lock into a stressed position. In this stressed position your posture will begin to change. Your head will tilt to one side, your shoulders will be uneven, hips will be uneven, and your weight will not be evenly distributed into both legs.
Once the spine is locked into this stressed position, the joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons, discs will begin to progressively deteriorate. The longer your body is in this position, the worse it gets.
This can lead to conditions such as degenerative disc disease, arthritis, herniated discs and more.
When your body frame is in this misaligned position, it will also cause irritation of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves that go throughout your body.
Nerves control every cell, organ, tissue, muscle in your body. When your spine is misaligned, your body must adapt to this stressful situation. This can lead to a variety of different conditions, including; migraine headaches, numbness, tingling, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, sciatica, and much more.
So I hope you can see the chiropractic care is about much more than bad backs.
Do many people with back and neck problems find amazing results with chiropractic care?
Absolutely!
But, upper cervical chiropractic care is not mainly about your back, it is mainly about your health and your life!
To schedule your NUCCA evaluation, click here.
Want to hear from people like you? Check out our reviews here.
Dr. Pete Tsiglieris of Advanced Spinal Care in Redwood City, California is an Upper Cervical Specialist trained by the National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association (NUCCA). His upper cervical clinic also serves San Mateo, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Carlos, and Sunnyvale. They are uniquely trained to correct problems in the upper cervical spine (upper neck). This vital area is intimately connected to the central nervous system and problems in this area have been shown to be an underlying cause of a variety of different health problems, including migraines and other headaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, neck pain, back pain and shoulder pain and weakness. More information can be found on our website at https://bayareanuccacare.com/
Sciatica is a disorder which causes a set of symptoms including pain in the derrière or leg that becomes worse when sitting, standing or squatting, also it can cause a burning or tingling “pins and needles” sensation in the leg, weakness, numbness, difficulty of motion in the foot or leg. The sciatic nerve runs from the spine through the buttocks, the tight and down the leg on both sides of the body. It is not abnormal for symptoms to manifest only on one side of the body.
Back pain and sciatica can be caused by disc problems in the back. Muscle trauma or injury is another cause for sciatica. Extra weight causes pressure on the lower back, so pregnancy and obesity are also common sciatica pain causes. In addition there are some spinal diseases such as swelling, arthritis and cancer that can cause the pain as well.
Most sciatica patients begin with NSAID’s such as Advil which help to bring down swelling and pain levels. Muscle relaxers and epidural steroid medicines are also used for anesthetic and swelling relief. In certain cases, surgery can be done, to fix a damaged disk or remove a tumor, for example. But many people are concerned about the side effects associated with drugs and surgery.
Seeking proper alignment through upper cervical chiropractic could be the answer to relieve your back pain and sciatica without drugs or surgery. The ultimate goal of upper cervical chiropractic care is to correct misalignments in the spine that may be leading to long standing postural problems.
So since upper cervical chiropractic focuses on alignment in the area of the upper spine, how does it help sciatica which is pain at the lower area of the spine? It helps because misalignment in the top of spine causes a shift that forces your body to compensate. Therefore, fixing misalignments at the top of the spine through upper cervical chiropractic, can help as your body begins to perform properly with no more over-correction for misalignments at the top of the spine. If you are interested in the benefits of upper cervical chiropractic for sciatica, begin by scheduling a consultation with an upper cervical chiropractor in your area.
To find an upper cervical chiropractor in your area go to www.NUCCA.org or www.upcspine.com or if you are in the Bay Area, to schedule your NUCCA evaluation, click here.
Want to hear from people like you? Check out our reviews here.
Dr. Pete Tsiglieris of Advanced Spinal Care in Redwood City, California is an Upper Cervical Specialist trained by the National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association (NUCCA). His upper cervical clinic also serves San Mateo, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Carlos, and Sunnyvale. They are uniquely trained to correct problems in the upper cervical spine (upper neck). This vital area is intimately connected to the central nervous system and problems in this area have been shown to be an underlying cause of a variety of different health problems, including migraines and other headaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, neck pain, back pain and shoulder pain and weakness. More information can be found on our website at https://bayareanuccacare.com/
