We have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to back pain by most medical professionals. Most healthcare practitioners have a poor record in treating lower back pain. To understand why a person experiences back pain, we must first understand that the reasons for back problems may include: Inherited body mechanics. Adaptations during growth. Adaptations after previous injuries. Our feet. Our Shoes Our work habits Our postural adaptations. Sports. Genetics. Exercise and muscular tone. Body symmetry. Abdominal surgeries such as C-sections or tummy tucks. A recent article in the National Geographic magazine suggests the hip flexors are to blame for most lower back pain and offers ways to strengthen the psoas, our main hip flexor. While I would agree that the psoas is often involved in lower back pain, it is often a symptom associated with other mechanical adaptations. While the article references anatomy and how the muscles communicate to the posterior rib cage, strengthening these already powerful muscles may manage back pain symptoms, but it fails to explain why most people experience back and even leg pain. Back pain is a result of different types of compensations that are unique to us and must be properly diagnosed by your healthcare providers. Most healthcare providers who were educated to believe that back pain is the problem rather than the symptom fail because they cannot properly diagnose back pain by only evaluating the back, the discs, and in some patients, the pain radiation into the hip, buttock, or leg. The problem begins with how most physicians understand back pain rather than their patients who have back pain. In other words, each patient is unique and has unique body mechanics causing the pain, rather than the problem being what we find on an X-ray or MRI, when our protocols for care fail to help most patients. This is why billions spent on lower back treatments have failed so many patients. The reasons we have back pain are different for many of us, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution requiring care for back pain. You can read the article from National Geographic using the link below. This one muscle could be the key to fixing your back pain Understanding back pain begins at the feet 40 years of chiropractic sports medicine have shown me that many treatments can offer relief, but the ones that modify the conditions resulting in lower back pain are the most effective approaches to help you become free of pain. What most healthcare practitioners get wrong while managing back pain. I am aware that most doctors are trained to treat the back, the disc, the findings on the MRI, and the pain down the leg that can result from the back joints being irritated. For acute pain, these practitioners, as published in a recent study, only help 10% of those with acute lower back pain. There is no magic bullet, and allowing a problem to worsen over weeks and months, as some people do, results in more damage and often longer treatment schedules. The type of practitioner you visit first will determine whether your treatment is effective. Current medical evidence suggests being given drugs that are not appropriate for most lower back problems which sometimes reduces symptom intensity for a mechanical problem such as back pain will create a more chronic problem. In the medical realm, care is usually protocolized back treatments from therapists doing the same thing to everyone, medications, MRI evaluations, and in some cases, injections or finally surgeries which can increase risk and cause future problems. Care for back pain in this paradigm is for the back, yet the mechanisms behind back pain begin at the feet. Why chiropractic care should be your first choice for evaluation and care of the lower back. Visiting a chiropractor first is often a simpler, lower-cost, and safer first approach to back pain. Considering all the different reasons a person has back pain, an understanding of why you hurt always begins with a thorough history of your current pain and past conditions. This holistic approach begins from our initial conversation as the right questions lead to a better evaluation and a more effective treatment regimen. Our examination is both neurological and functional, evaluating how you move, what doesn’t move, and why, and understanding how it is related to the cause of your pain. Commonly, problems in the lower back and pelvis begin at the feet, and leveling the pelvis by taping the feet in a neutral position often feels good since the patient moves better and can experience relief of pain even before we treat them. This test often suggests foot orthotics may help solve a common source of back pain; the feet. Often, the asymmetries found in the lower body and feet can explain chronic problems in the upper body due to compensations present since childhood. Stiffness rarely makes our phones ring in the offices, but pain does. Stiffness eventually leads to pain. Most patients begin to move and feel better during their first visit, but depending on the cause of the pain and inflammation, long-term relief may require weeks of care, although the amount of care needed over weeks can solve a problem developing for years. Solving most lower back pain requires we understand the person, not just the back. As the article from National Geographic suggests, the psoas is often involved in lower back pain, but in the context of the persons body style, height, feet etc. Most patients have chronic problems that become acute and normalize chronic problems until they hurt and the pain does not resolve. Solving mechanical problems and connecting the dots to other past or current problems they experience is the correct way to help a back pain patients. Chiropractic treatments in our offices consist of: Active evaluation and treatment, or treat-test-treat, to determine if our care was effective, which will improve how you move. Exercises to tone and strengthen as well as reeducate muscles and tight fascia, which is often behind chronic tightness and back pain. Soft tissue manipulation of the tight fascia, which often is part of why patients hurt, and other methods such as instrument-assisted soft tissue treatment for stiffer tissues. Manipulation of the extremities and spine to further improve movement. Some patients refer to this as cracking, although some of the videos online showing chiropractic adjustments are not representative of how we practice in any way. Manipulation is performed carefully to ensure the most effective approach to improving how you move. As a rule, our offices are hands-on only, and we do not use machines such as muscle stim, as hands-on care and evaluation is more effective and efficient in our opinion. Care is always patient-centered, and our goals are aligned with yours. Need help today? Book online.