Back pain causes a chain of events that aren’t too pretty. As a practicing Denver chiropractor, I’ve seen more than my fair share of people brought to their knees, literally, due to back pain. It’s one form of pain that you just can’t tough out.

The body is one contiguous unit. It must be treated as such. If you chase the pain trying to get back pain relief, far too often you’ll come up empty. The pain you experience in a certain spinal area, say the lower back, may not be the primary area that’s injured. For instance, middle back pain causes muscle spasms, which can cause the lower back, or even neck and shoulders to overwork by compensating.

Here are a few more obscure back pain causes…

Did you know that an inflammatory diet, the ‘Standard American Diet’ (S.A.D) can contribute to pain and discomfort? Did you know that one of the most common side effects of statin drugs is muscle and joint pain?

Yep.

By the way, an anti-inflammatory diet is one of my favorite ways to not only feel better naturally, but to lose weight and have more energy. If you’re overweight, that extra weight can be contributory towards back pain.  HERE is my favorite 30-diet to ‘de-flame’ and feel better.

Kidney pain causes a referral of soreness or deep ache to the lower back. Depending on the kidney, it could cause left lower back pain or right lower back pain.

Upper back pain causes the thoracolumbar muscles to spasm, which can have an effect all the way down to the pelvis. Range of motion now becomes compromised, which, in turn, can cause the piriformis muscle, located near the buttock, to spasm. And guess what? The sciatic nerve runs right through the middle of the piriformis muscle! This is known as Piriformis Syndrome. This can cause hip and leg pain or sciatica. Sciatica causes the leg to experience pain, numbing and/or tingling.

A herniated disc (disk), can also contribute to back and leg pain.

Back pain causes tender trigger points and trigger points can be treated with manual therapy techniques. Unbeknown to many, the best chiropractor can offer much more than just a spinal adjustment. Sometimes a chiropractic adjustment is not the therapy you need. Solving chronic pain is almost always a matter of good clinical detective work. With all of the ‘crumbs’ in place, the doctor and patient can follow the clues to locate the cause of the pain in your back. It makes the remedy much easier.

Horses and zebras both leave similar tracks, but they’re VERY different from each other!

Physiatrists, physical therapists and chiropractors are all well trained in providing tips for a spinal strengthening routine.  If your primary care doctor is not up to speed on neuromuscular medicine and is immersed in only allopathic methods, you may need to add someone else to your health care team, as these types of muscle, tendon and soft tissue injuries are quite common.

FYI – If your back pain causes you to experience an inability to be able to stop or initiate urination or defecation… that’s a 911. These are nerve and spinal cord related effects of a ruptured disc causing what’s known as Cauda Equina Syndrome.

** Here is a trusted FREE back pain cure book.

Fibromyalgia Facts:

In 1986, Fibromyalgia (FMS) patients evaluated chiropractic care via a ‘questionnaire study’, as being more successful than  prescribed medication.(1) Follow-up survey figures in 1991 supported the earlier findings.(2) An additional study demonstrated that chiropractors were amongst the alternative health practitioners that FMS (Fibromyalgia Syndrome) patients most frequently used.(3) Myofascial or deep tissue massage has also been a popular treatment.

Supplementary studies propose that spinal manipulation (chiropractic adjustments) and myofascial therapy (myofascial release) improved some of the FMS patients’ symptoms, especially the most prolific symptom- pain.(4,5) And in yet another controlled study, para-spinal soft-tissue massage along with chiropractic spinal manipulation worked to increase FMS patients’ general sense of well-being.(6)

Other studies, though, suggest that the long-term use of spinal manipulation does not measurably improve the pain and functional impairment of FMS patients.(7-9)

?

These reports are why I do not use spinal manipulation as the sole modality to treat Fibromyalgia in my Denver chiropractors clinic. Contrarily, these reports are one of the reasons I sometimes do.  Treatment plans must be customized to the individual. Spinal manipulation is a tool. Myofascial release is a tool and tools should be used accordingly, based on a fluctuating number of individual factors. In my clinical experience, Fibromyalgia patients who receive too much spinal manipulation or too aggressive spinal manipulation may actually react adversely and get worse. I’ve have found that most Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue patients need metabolic rehabilitation as well as neurological relief.

Most suffer from what I call “Nerve Exhaustion.”

The fact is that spinal manipulation and deep tissue therapy may offer mild-to-moderate but temporary pain relief. Most patients achieve long-term reprieve from pain and additional symptoms only when they go through comprehensive metabolic and neurological treatment and physical rehabilitation.

1. Wolfe, F, Smythe, HA, Yunus, MB, et al. The American College of Rheumatology 1990

criteria for the classification of fibromyalgia: report of the multicenter criteria committee.

Arthritis Rheumatism 1990; 33:160-172.

2. Pioro-Boisset M, Esdaile JM, and Fitzcharles MA: Alternative medicine use in fibromyalgia

syndrome. Arthritis Care Res 1996; 9(1):13-17.

3. Wolfe F. The clinical syndrome of fibrositis. Am J Med 1986; 81(suppl 3A):7-14. 35. Wolfe

F. Personal communication, March 8, 1991.

4. Blunt, K.L., Rajwani, M.H., and Guerriero, R.C.: The effectiveness of chiropractic

management of fibromyalgia patients: a pilot study. J Manip Physiol Ther 1997; 20(6):389-399.

5. Hains G, and Hains F. A combined ischemic compression and spinal manipulation in the

treatment of fibromyalgia: A preliminary estimate of dose and efficacy. J Manip Physiol Ther

2000; 23(4):225-230.

6. Backstrom G and Rubin BR. When Muscle Pain Won’t Go Away. Dallas: Taylor Publishing

Company, 1992.

7. Dimmock S, Troughton PR, and Bird HA. Factors predisposing to the resort of

complementary therapies in patients with fibromyalgia. Clin Rheumatol 1996; 15(5):478-482.

8. Jacobs JW, Rasker JJ, Van Riel PL, Gridnau FW, and van de Putte LB. Alternative treatment

methods in rheumatic diseases: a literature review. Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 1991; 135(8):317-

322.

9. Fitzcharles MA and Esdaile JM. Nonphysician practitioner treatments and fibromyalgia

syndrome. J Rheumatol 1997; 24(5):937-940

If you’ve been experiencing lower back pain, take a few minutes to read this through and consider the sources that may be hurting you.

Certain nerves control certain functions in the body. Pain is only one of the functions. Certain nerves carry certain messages. Pain is what’s called a nociceptive signal sent to the brain in response to an even that could be painful.  Not all nociceptive signals are reproduced in the brain as pain though.  Sometimes the signal can be nociceptive, but the amplitude of the signal isn’t high enough to register as pain.  In this case it might only be a dull ache or nothing at all.  Take for instance a sports injury like cutting a finger in a football game and not feeling it; nociceptive thresholds can change due to your activity or due to such day to day things stress.

Lower back pain left alone too long may turn into things like sciatica or numbing and tingling in the leg, which could be sign of a herniated or bulging disc (disk). A lot of times I see improper foot bio-mechanics as the causative factor in chronic LBP. ‘Causative’ meaning THE primary reason for pain in the lower back, sacroiliac joints or hip pain or piriformis syndrome.

Many times a person may injure their low back and not notice the pain till that evening… or the next day. It’s possible that the injury was a muscle strain in this case and when activity decreases the muscle and the pain threshold ‘relax’ enough to notice the nociception to the point that the brain registers the signal as pain.

Bending forward and pulling weeds in the garden is a pretty common task, but if done for too long it can be similar to a lifting injury.  If you hear a ‘pop’ in your spine, it’s likely you over did it. Maybe a ligament injury or herniated disc. Maybe the pop was a strained muscle or a joint dysfunctionly moving.  Back off of your activity and rest immediately until you can be checked.  Letting an injury recover right away is always best – no matter how big or small the injury may seem.  Eventually, injuries will always catch up with us if we ignore them. Symptoms is your body’s way of communicating with you about it’s well-being…pay attention.

Lower back pain affects 80% of Americans at some point in their working lives.  All professions are susceptible too…office managers, receptionists, laborers, drivers, and CEO’s.  Injuries can be chronic in nature such as poor ergonomics.  Chairs with little support aren’t necessarily bad.  The important thing to consider is how well it fits you. Even the best chair with good support ‘steals’ the job of supporting your spine from your core spinal muscles.  Is support bad, no. The point is to maintain a level of fitness that is synonymous with your lifestyle so that YOUR spine can support itself and do what you ask of it.

Pain in your back can often be prevented or managed with exercises.  Back pain exercises can range from isometric workouts, isotonic weight lifting, and the infamous yoga routines available. I’m not a big fan of the type of generic back pain exercises that you get from the overworked physical therapist that look like they are a copy of a copy of a from a 1970 copy.

In a case where a disc injury is involved, McKenzie exercises are usually recommended.  Extension exercises often offer the most results with a bulging disc due to the decompressive nature of the movement.  (Decompression of the spine can help reverse the pressure of a bulging disc; sometimes referred to as a slipped disc).

Some motions to be careful of are: twisting and bending (simultaneously) especially under additional weight.  Examples of this are carrying awkward objects.  They don’t have to even be that heavy to cause injury because the orientation of annulus fibers in the disc are such that they ‘criss cross’ at about 15 degrees from each other.  This particular orientation is at its weakest when twisting and bending occur at the same time.  This is why you’ll often see a moving crew wearing back braces.

Is twisting bad? No. Is bending bad? No. Combining the two can be, especially when when you have a deconditioning syndrome, which is what most back pain patients have- spinal stabilizing muscles that are unhealthy or not properly conditioned.

Be sure to ‘layer’ your core exercises.  At our chiropractic clinic in Lakewood, CO we use a functional movement screen to determine which parts of your core needs the most work. We work form the weakest link out. Exercises that compromise the weakest muscles are restricted until the patient can demonstrate that they have ‘fixed’ the weakest link.

When you’re in acute pain, starting out with a back exercise that includes deep bending and extreme ranges of motion isn’t a good idea.  It’s this very motion that keeps chiropractors in business.  The spine needs to be treated with care…work up to your goals slowly.  An injury will always set your goals back and hamper your routine.

The point of your back pain exercises should be prevention, not necessarily treatment.

When it comes to back pain relief, a visit to the chiropractor has to be on the list, in most cases. Although we’re ‘not real doctors’ To become a chiropractor one must do so by national licensing and national board certifications…not to mention a 4 year bachelor’s degree and 4-5 years of doctoral training in a professional accredited chiropractic university. (Including cadaver lab at 7AM for a year ) And people wonder why I don’t want to go see “Body World’s.”

Back to back pain…

Since back pain relief is so elusive, personally, I like to bring in “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men” to battle it. Most of the time, that’s what it takes.

You get knocked down 7 times, we stand up 8.

There are some home remedies like a topical analgesic, l use Biofreeze. It can provide temporary pain reduction, but by no means is it a cure.  Analgesics like aspirin or Tylenol are often recommended for low grade back pain relief, but unfortunately this option rarely treats the actual CAUSE of the pain.  It’s highly unlikely that your pain is coming from a LACK of aspirin or Tylenol flowing in your veins.

Back pain causes..

Back pain is caused by various conditions and a proper diagnosis will determine proper therapy.  To get a good idea of what’s causing your discomfort, make a journal of the physical things you do the most. Sitting, driving, sleeping, whatever and review how you are performing them. Example: Today I was driving and the car in front of me looked like their was a passenger  driver was in the very middle of the car with no driver. As I pulled up next to him and looked, the driver was slunk over so far that his head was in the middle of the car! God forbid he get rear ended in a position like that…ouch!

Pain relief should start with first knowing what’s causing the pain. Too many doc’s just use the ’shotgun approach.’ The most conservative options such as manipulation therapy, physical therapy, massage, ice or heat should be attempted first.

Acute and chronic conditions can offer a different approach for back pain relief.  Overuse injuries are often chronic in nature.  This being the case, the management of your condition will become more of a process than an event. Sometimes you can expect immediate relief, but often times injuries result in tissue damage which will lend itself to a treatment plan that isn’t an overnight miracle, although we take them when we can.

Things to consider when seeing your Denver chiropractor are not only how long you’ve dealt with low back pain, but also how you my have injured your back.  Mechanism of injury and daily activities give your doctor a better idea of how the injury was sustained.  In knowing this, the doctor can offer better recovery options for you.  In this case, knowing the past can give clues to preventing the spinal pain from coming back.

Things to consider regarding back pain relief:

• How old is your mattress?
• What kind of shoes do you wear? (Check back for a blog post on the “best shoes for back pain” soon)
  
• How much core exercise do you do?
• What’s your posture like? (Like right now?)
  
• When was the last time you sat and performed back pain stretches for 20 minutes?
• How much water do you drink? Let me guess.. “Not as much as I should.” (I’ve heard that one a few times)
• Do you eat a lot of boxed or packaged foods? (They’re inflammatory, you know)
• Omega-3 fatty acids in your diet?
  
• Are you taking a magnesium supplement? Most should be.
  
• Look at the amount of stress you’re dealing with. Most people have no idea how much stress contributes to physical pain.

Here’s a big one that most people have no idea about…Statin drugs are also a HUGE contributor to back, neck and joint pain! I’m seeing it more and more. Patients get off the statins and low and behold… back pain relief!

**As always, remember we serve Denver, Lakewood, Englewood and all of Littleton.

DRX9000 spinal decompression treatment for sciatica, back pain and herniated and bulging discs is quite simply a pain relieving, alternative treatment for patients who experience chronic back and leg pain or chronic neck and arm pain.

The DRX9000 (which treats the lumbar spine for lower back conditions) and the DRX9000C (which treats the cervical spine for neck and arm pain) are forms of treatment referred to as “non-surgical spinal decompression therapy.”

Spinal decompression therapy is an effective treatment option for the management of pain and disability for patients who are suffering from lower back pain, leg pain and/or sciatica and nerve or joint and soft tissue pain generated from the discs in the low back or neck.

The application of treatment with the DRX9000 is designed to apply decompression forces to compressed and degenerative structures of the spine.

Non-surgical spinal decompression treatment involves a series of rhythmic, intermittent and alternating stretching and relaxation cycles. The gentle forces are targeted to the injured spinal areas which aim to relieve the pain and symptoms associated with herniated discs, bulging discs, sciatica and facet syndromes (like facet arthritis).

We offer this therapy in the Denver, Colorado metro area. DRX9000 spinal decompression is available at our Lakewood chiropractic clinic.

Therapeutic laser for pain relief and tissue healing has become a ‘go-to’ alternative treatment modality for chronic pain syndromes in our chiropractic clinic in Lakewood.

In fact, it’s hard to imagine practicing without it. I’ve used it with great success for the treatment of acute injuries such as recently sprained ankles, as well as chronic conditions like low back disc herniations and carpal tunnel syndrome.

As a chiropractor and complimentary and alternative practitioner, I’m always to willing to research and? explore new natural healing methods. Nothing is stopping medical doctors from doing the same but it’s peculiar how many just don’t.

So, while most of mainstream medicine remains on the sidelines, there are some practitioners of sports medicine, who are highly motivated to find new ways to heal soft-tissue injuries by using such treatments as laser therapy.

Here’s an interesting story I found that flew under the radar regarding sports injuries and laser therapy…

In the week before the Super Bowl, Boston based registered nurse Ellen Spicuzza treated more than 10 Patriot players with laser therapy for soft tissue injuries.

“A couple of days prior to the Super Bowl weekend, I treated Patriot wide receiver David Givens, who had a ‘locked-up’ hamstring,” she said. She applied laser therapy over?the “belly” of his hamstring muscle for about five minutes, she said.

“The laser released it.” Spicuzza, an independent nurse/physical therapist in Boston, usually treats Patriot players’ injuries with medical massage. For the Super Bowl, she, for the first time, used low level laser therapy on the athletes’ most troublesome pain spots.

Spicuzza was skeptical before being introduced to laser therapy, “I am not into gimmicks,” she said.?“I didn’t think it would help.” She changed her mind after seeing how fast the laser therapy expedited healing of some of the players’ pain and soreness. “I don’t think the improved ?recoveries were a coincidence,” Spicuzza said. “It did help. I used it on a flared-up sciatic nerve, and the player had relief soon after treatment.”

What will really catch on, whether it’s in the NFL or the local PTA, is the fact that therapeutic laser not only relieves pain but speeds up healing time in a number of tough to treat conditions…naturally.

Fibromyalgia Treatment and Oxygen Deprivation

As a Denver CAM doctor, I do not treat fibromyalgia solely a musculoskeletal disorder- because it isn’t solely a musculoskeletal disorder.

Fibromyalgia is far more neurologically based than muscularly based. It’s just that your muscles feel most of the pain. Most of the Fibromyalgia diagnoses that I see come from Rheumatologists. A Rhueumatologist, by definition, is a  doctor that specializes in disorders of joints and soft tissues- not nerves.

In this article I will bring some evidence to the table that may cause you to question whether Fibromyalgia is more of a joint and soft tissue disorder or, as I and others feel it is, a neurological disorder.

Plenty of new research shows that a Fibromyalgia diagnosis is far more likely to be of a neurological origin then a rheumatic one.  The term rheumatology originates from the Greek word rheuma, meaning “that which flows as a river or stream,” and the suffix -ology, meaning “the study of.” (Which is ironic to me since nerves and blood seem to flow like a river much more than joints).

Most of my Fibromyalgia patients are chronically tired. But what actually get tired is your brain.

“Nerve Exhaustion” is a phrase I’ve coined that I feel accurately describes what happens in Fibromyalgia.

One of the unique treatment approaches I employ for fibromyalgia patients is the use of oxygen therapy.

Listen to what noted Professor of Medicine MAJID ALI, M.D. has to say about the four major symptoms of Fibromyalgia sufferers……

4 Major Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

• Persistent muscle pain and weakness. Explanation: Oxygen deprivation contributes to muscle pain.

• Disabling fatigue. Explanation: Oxygen deprivation in tissue can lead to fatigue and exhaustion.

• Brain fog (problems of mood, memory, and implementation). Explanation: Oxygen deprivation in brain cells lead to brain fog and dysfunction.

• Air hunger. Explanation: Oxygen deprivation within the cells causes a craving for air.

I do not take the treatment or diagnosis of Fibromyalgia lightly and you should steer clear of anyone who thinks otherwise. A recent study uncovered evidence that a Fibromyalgia diagnosis can be far more damaging than you may realize.

In The Journal of Neuroscience, a study revealed that the brain can be prematurely aging in Fibromyalgia patients.

And what may be more important is that they found that the longer the individual had been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, the more gray matter they had lost.

“Accumulating evidence now suggests that fibromyalgia may be associated with central nervous system dysfunction.”

The brain matter loss was more than 9 times the normal aging!

Other studies also point to a possible explanation for the decreased gray matter in these disorders. It may be atrophy caused by excitotoxicity or exposure to inflammatory processes (Apkarian et al., 2004). In reviewing the above studies it’s remarkable that in Fibromyalgia patients, gray matter loss occurred predominately in regions of the brain that are most related to stress.

Stress can be managed and I believe it MUST be managed for you to get better. The above research should be all you need to be motivated to adopt some kind of stress management protocol that works for you.

The road to recovery IS often long and difficult. But there IS a road to recovery. I can assure you it’s bumpy but there IS a road- you just may not have found it yet.

My grandfather once told me,

“No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, turn around… it’s the WRONG road!”

If what the above mentioned studies are saying in terms of brain aging is true, then every moment that you don’t get help counts against you.

The pursuit of health should be paramount in your habits and actions. I know it’s hard, but you have Fibromyalgia, so you’ve proven you can do hard. Fibromyalgia pain is hard.

Denver Fibromyalgia Treatment

With the addition of oxygen therapy to my Fibromyalgia syndrome treatment protocols I’ve noticed a marked improvement when other methods were not causing patients to get better. When it comes to what this CAM  doctor thinks about Fibromyalgia treatment in Denver…I say never give up.

Journal of Neuroscience April 11, 2007 • 27(15):4004 – 4007 www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/15/4004

For the past several years herniated disc treatment with non-surgical spinal decompression has been my treatment of choice for bulging and herniated discs.

Since the introduction of non-surgical spinal decompression to our clinic, we’ve helped hundreds of patients from Lakewood, Littleton and the entire Denver, Colorado metro area. And as safe and effective  that non-surgical spinal decompression is, unfortunately, there have been people we haven’t been able to help as well. It’s a ‘double tough’ condition.

If there’s one absolute that I can conclude from my experience it’s this- you can’t ‘tough out’ a herniated disc.

Prior to the addition of the DRX9000 Spinal Decompression machine, in our clinic we predominantly utilized conservative and specific chiropractic care, a back pain relief machine called the ATM2, lifestyle modifications (including case specific stretches and/or exercises) and physical and manual therapy.

But sometimes this approach just plain fell short.

By utilizing clinical discretion and adding spinal decompression therapy when appropriate we’ve dramatically increased our success rate in providing treatment for herniated disc pain sufferers to help them get ‘back in the game.’

Of course, sometimes surgery ends up being inevitable, but more often than not the non-surgical spinal decompression approach is very effective at relieving sciatica, leg and arm pain and/or neck and low back pain caused by herniated or bulging discs.

That’s been my experience anyway.

One of the main reasons I like spinal decompression therapy is that not only is it capable of relieving your pain, it’s capable of making the tissues that are causing the pain healthier.

If you think you may have a bulging disc or a herniated disc (or you’ve already been diagnosed with one) and you want to explore alternatives to back surgery and you live in Lakewood, Littleton, Denver or the surrounding area, call our clinic and set up a consultation with me to go over your individual case- each person has unique needs.

Note: If you want to know more about the DRX9000 and spinal decompression therapy you can go here for DRX9000 reviews. Here’s another DRX9000 review by a top radiologist.

Looking for a natural treatment for insomnia? You’re not alone. As many as 15% of Americans suffer from chronic insomnia. A cure for sleeplessness is one goal worth pursuing when it comes to wellness.

When obtained, a remedy for restful sleep can be a magical form of holistic medicine.

Sleeping well is key to living with less pain and having a better life.

In my clinic we use neurotransmitter therapy to help with chronic insomnia. It can be remarkably effective. It’s natural (it must be for me to use it ) and it addresses one of the true causes of insomnia- depletion of normal neurotransmitter levels. The key is to help the body obtain healthy levels of two very important master hormones- serotonin and dopamine.

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