Most back pain is a painful condition affecting the mid to lower portion of the spine, which causes dysfunction in the lower back. Patients often experience pain that radiates into other regions of the body such as the hip, groin, knee, leg, and foot. This pain can be accompanied with uncomfortable sensations like numbness, tingling, or burning. In some cases, patients may observe referred pain in unusual areas like the groin, shin, calf, or ankle. This referred pain may or may not be accompanied by noticeable back pain.

An intervertebral disks looks like a jelly doughnut with water gels inside. They act as "shock absorbers" which cushion the adjacent vertebral bones. Your neck and backbones move without pain because of the disks between them. The spinal column contains a total of 23 vertebral disks. Damage or tearing to any of these disks may prompt pain symptoms that originate in the disk itself and then radiate outward as disk material presses on a nearby nerve.

Disk Damage may result from:

1. The tearing of the outer layer of a disk or annulus fiber, which leads to localized back pain.

2. A bulging or herniated disk, which leads to back pain or sciatica

3. An endplate fracture.

4. Stenosis — The end result of longterm disk damage which causes a thickening of ligamentum flavum and facet hypertophy.

Back pain can be caused by a variety of disk-related issues, including damaged disks which cause pain, spasms, and muscle tension. Abnormal disk pressure causes aching discomfort, stiffness, and tightness. As this pressure increases, the outer layer of the disk may tear, inflaming the disk as a whole and initially causing an increase in localized pain. Eventually as the tear worsens, the disk may bulge or herniate, causing leaking fluid which inflames the nerve root and leads to sciatica (pinched nerve) or radiating pain that reaches the leg, ankle, and foot.

Disk damage may be the result of:

1. Trauma — a car accident, work injury, or sports injury.

2. Repetitive Movement — Repeat lifting, bending, twisting, and turning motions from yard work or exercises that aggravate disk damage.

3. Constant Abnormal Pressure — The strain, poor posture, and incorrect positioning caused by sitting, looking down, driving, and standing.

4. Stress — Common daily emotional or psychological stress that manifests in the body.

Most disk tears happen as a result of abnormal pressure from flexion motion or incorrect posture. These actions often cause the disk to tear on the posterior side of the annulus fiber. Continuous tears on the annulus fiber will cause a bulging or herniated disk at some point in your lifetime.

Flexion motion means bending forward, stretching forward, or lifting things repetitively. Flexion posture is more static and occurs while sitting in the office or driving. Extension motion can cause damage or crack the endplate with severe pressure but rarely affects the annulus fiber.

Disk tears also result from acute trauma like a car accident or sports injury.

Disk damage is also responsible for your knots and spasms. Contrary to what you may believe, this is not a muscle problem. A torn disk prevents optimal movement due to the pain. Every time you move, you re-inflame the disc, causing more pain. The muscles surrounding your back and the hip area will activate and fire to act like a back brace. The phenomena of muscle tightness and spasms are protective mechanisms rather than the problem itself.

In short: misalignment, abnormal pressure, and inflammation.

1. Abnormal alignment of the spine, or a loss of lordosis causes abnormal disk pressure — the source of your stiffness, tightness and aching discomfort.

2. Excessive abnormal pressure causing damage or tearing of the inner disk — the source of your localized back pain

3. Continuous abnormal pressure caused by bulging and herniated disk — the source of inflammation on a dorsal nerve root ganglion which causes radiating pain (pinched nerve) or Sciatica

The first step is to recognize this problem as a disk problem caused by abnormal pressure.

The pain will come back again and again because muscle tightness is just one of the signs of disk damage. You can either manage this problem and get rid of it, or develop ongoing pain from chronic problems like a bulging or herniated disk and stenosis.

To give you a firm understanding of the problem we will provide explanations with actual models and imaging on your first visit.

You will need to implement proper spinal hygiene to fix this problem.

Good Posture — Maintaining a proper sitting, sleeping, and resting posture.

Good Stretching — Learn to execute Mckenzie extension stretching — NOT flexion stretching

Good Exercise — Learn the correct way to perform walking, jogging, and running. Limit or refrain from strengthening exercise.

Remember, 98% of lower back pain does not require surgery. We will undergo a thorough exam to rule out severe problems. In most instances, you can enable yourself to fix your pain through daily spinal hygiene and routine chiropractic care.

We will instruct you on the following protocols for spinal hygiene.

Good Posture — We help you understand what good posture looks like and how to maintain it. We cover how to sit, sleep and rest, along with what to do or not do.

Good Stretching — We explain the harmful forms of stretching that will exacerbate disk damage, and we instruct you on proper stretching techniques.

Good Exercise — We explain the harmful exercises that are causing more damage to your disk and instruct you on proper beneficial exercises.

We will also deliver a specific adjustment to take off the abnormal pressure on your disk and spine.

Because each person’s genes and lifestyle influence their posture, it’s impossible to treat and fix pain without understanding the unique mechanics of the individual.

The spinal hygiene program focuses on understanding an individual's history and pain pattern, and then provides a tailored solution to that problem. We will inquire about your pain history from the start of the treatment.

Often during your 20s, 30s and 40s, you will experience severe back or neck pain at least once. Most of the time, the pain will go away by itself in two to three weeks with some ice, heat, pain patches, and medication.

You will feel better but perhaps deal with some occasional aching, discomfort or stiffness that remains. You should understand that your initial excruciating pain was the result of a disk tear or similar damage, and its remnants are there imposing a certain measure of discomfort.

These can be the signs that alert you to the potential of more severe conditions like a bulging or herniated disk, or a pinched nerve / sciatica.

Once we understand what initially caused the pain, and the nature of your periodic discomfort, we will explain the steps you can take to reduce it. Strong posture, appropriate stretching, and correct exercise will be the foundation of the treatment.

Your posture when sitting, sleeping, and resting forms the basis of both the problem and the solution. These postures initiated the pain and, when you know what to do and what not to do, they will also help correct it.

Patients frequently attempt the wrong stretches and exercises which ultimately worsen the problem. The spinal hygiene program is designed to address each component of the problem and correct them one by one.