Low Back Pain Relief with Chiropractic Care

Chiropractic care helps relieve low back pain by correcting spinal alignment which takes pressure off the nerves.

What is the main cause of low back pain?

Dr. Scott Gardner: The main cause of low back pain is poor spinal alignment, which puts pressure on the nerves that we call subluxation. These subluxations can lead to malfunction of muscles, ligaments, and tendons, and ultimately, cause some type of pain or discomfort.

What chiropractic techniques do you use to treat patients with low back pain?

Dr. Scott Gardner: We use a combination of about 10 different techniques. Some are more lighter force techniques that are done with an instrument. Some are more traditional techniques that are manual adjustments, and some are more postural types of corrections. No one technique works for everyone, so we create a specific recipe for each person using different parts of these techniques.

How soon can a patient begin to feel relief?

Dr. Scott Gardner: Well, since every person is different, some may notice a change right in the moment, some the next day. What I always like to say to our patients is expect a minimum of a 10% improvement per week. So, if we think about 10 weeks, meaning 100% improvement in the issue that brought them through the door. It doesn’t mean their problem is corrected in 10 weeks. But as far as what they’re noticing in their ability to move, their ability to sleep, the symptoms that brought them through the door, becoming virtually non-existent.

What kinds of stretches or exercises do you recommend to your patients to support their recovery from low back pain?

Dr. Scott Gardner: Again, every person is unique and has unique requirements, but we tend to focus on specific posture building exercises and stretches that target areas that are most tight for that individual. When it comes to the lower back, those stretches are going to target the glute muscles or the butt muscles, the piriformis, which is a smaller muscle below the butt muscle, hamstrings, calves, and muscles of the low back.

What kind of lifestyle changes do you advise your patients to consider to avoid recurrent low back pain like ergonomics, posture improvement, et cetera?

Dr. Scott Gardner: Yes, it’s really posture, posture, posture, and we can focus on posture in every aspect of life. But we like to focus the two places we spend most of our time and that’s going to be sleeping and at work.

So, when it comes to sleeping, never sleeping on your stomach, either side is good. If both legs are together, then using a pillow between the legs. If the bottom leg is straight and the top leg is bent, then we recommend using a pillow under the bent knee. And then if the person sleeps on their back, then using about 4-12 inches of support, meaning a pillow or multiple pillows under bent knees.

And then at work when sitting, if you look at your thighs, the top of the thigh closest to the hip always needs to be higher than the top of the thigh closest to the knee. So, we never want to lower the chair so that the hips are lower than the knees to accommodate the monitor. Again, if we’re looking, the hips always need to be higher than the knees.