Back pain afflicts millions of people every year and is likely responsible for many hours of missed work or compromised work not to mention the tremendous toll it takes on diminution of quality of life. The causes of back pain are numerous and for simplicity the pain onset can be classified as either short-term, high impact or long-term, low impact. An example of the former would be an auto accident whiplash trauma to the neck and back. A long-term, gradual onset of back pain could be from sleeping on an old mattress, sitting daily for extended periods or performing repetitive motion activities such as twisting/lifting repeatedly or daily use of a computer keyboard for extended time periods.
Oftentimes a person with long-term, low impact onset of back or joint pain will not consider their painful condition as potentially serious if not treated with appropriate interventions such as chiropractic care, massage, specific exercises and stretching techniques. It is too easy and convenient to discount the potential disability from persistent structural pain. The tendency is to take medications and consider the back or joint pain as a normal occurrence, a temporary setback that will not recur. This perception is unhealthy and clinically inaccurate and can predispose the sufferer to further pain and lifestyle compromise without the appropriate interventions as described above.
Auto accidents, sports injuries and on-the-job injuries are sudden events and generally more worrisome to the back pain victim. As with long-term onset of back pain if these traumatic events are only treated with drugs the likelihood of chronic pain increases tremendously. In either type of pain onset, chiropractic care, if incepted soon after the perception of pain, offers a viable and likely permanent resolution (depending on other historical and medical factors).
Pain is defined as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage…”, “an abnormal affective state, i.e. an emotional disturbance, that is called into being by the development of mechanical and/or chemical changes in the tissues of the body whose nature and magnitude are such that they give rise to activity in afferent systems within the neuraxis that are normally quiescent.” [1]
This is to say that back pain is not normal or otherwise predictable, depending on the circumstances. The afferent system is that part of the nervous system that gives outside information, environmental and physical stimuli, to the brain where it is registered as pain or pleasure. The other major component, the efferent system, sends messages from the brain out to our bodies, the actual expressions of pain or pleasure. So one system is a registration of stimuli while the other system is an expression of that information.
Chiropractic adjustments of the axial skeleton and the peripheral articulations benefit these two nervous system components. At the moment of the adjustment the nervous system releases endorphins and other beneficial substances like catecholamines to lessen the extent of pain. These adjustments, therefore, are a natural approach since they marshal all of the body’s available resources. In this way, the pain amelioration can be seen as a beneficial side effect of the adjustment since the correction of the aberrant spine/joint biomechanics is among the predominant reasons for the original cause of the back pain.
Chiropractic care for back pain uses a multitude of techniques. The doctor knows which technique is most appropriate. In the event that the back pain does not resolve timely the patient is referred out to another specialist, perhaps an orthopedic surgeon or a physical therapist who specializes in pain management. The patient benefits with this multidisciplinary approach.
[1] Spinal Pain Syndromes: Nociceptive, Neuropathic, and Psychologic Mechanisms (Journal Manipulative Physiol Ther 1999;22:458–72)
Guest Author:
Dr. Peter J. Williams
is a multi-decade D.C., Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Blood Type
Diet Practitioner and natural health researcher
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