Overview

Many patients come to us for pain relief. Modalities such as heat, ice, electric stimulation and ultrasound can be helpful in the treatment of acutely inflamed and irritated tissues, but we believe it is more important to identify and treat the reasons why your tissues have become inflamed and irritated to begin with. For this reason, we examine the entire body to identify and treat not just the pain, but also the source of the pain.

Low Back Pain

Many people are surprised to discover that low back pain is associated with excessive motion of the joints of the low back (lumbar spine and sacro-iliac joints). Excessive motion of the low back is commonly associated with tightness of the hips and mid back (thoracic spine and rib cage) and or weakness of their core musculature (abdominals, back muscles and pelvic musculature). Excessive motion of the low back can lead to

1. Joint Dysfunction: The lumbar and sacro-iliac joints becoming “stuck” at their extreme ranges of motion.
   
   
2. Degenerative Joint Disease: Wear and tear of the lumbar and sacro-iliac joints.
   
   
3. Degenerative Disc Disease: Wear and tear of the discs of the low back.
   
   
4. Lumbar Stenosis: Narrowing of the openings where the spinal cord and nerves pass, causing spinal cord and spinal nerve irritation.
   
   
5. Lumbar Disc Bulge: The gel inside the disc begins to work it’s way through cracks and fissures in the disc, resulting in an outward bulge of the outer wall of the disc causing inflammation and nerve irritation.
   
   
6. Lumbar Disc Herniation: As the disc bulge worsens, the outer wall of the disc begins to break down and the gel inside the disc works it’s way outside the disc, causing further inflammation and nerve irritation.
   

The treatment goals for each of the conditions is similar

1. Diminish symptoms through pain reducing exercises specific to each patient.
   
   
2. Identify and treat the underlying source of the problem.
   1. Specific hip tightness patterns
   2. Specific mid back tightness patterns
   3. Specific core weakness patterns
   4. Abnormal functional movement patterns specific to each patient’s work, sport or activity of daily living
      
      
3. Prevention: Each patient is instructed in a preventative home exercise program to minimize the chance that the problem will recur.