Damage or decay in your lower spine can significantly impact your lifestyle and daily routine.
Lower back pain is the number one thing that shows up in a chiropractic office. This is the number two condition (upper respiratory infections are number one) to keep people how from work resulting in lost productivity. It is estimated that over half of Americans deal with lower back problems at least once in their life time. Get the point? This is a pretty big deal, but why.
The lower back is where the transition of energy or stress from our moving legs goes into our upper body. The lower spine has some impressive range of motion and huge musculature to support it. It is so often abused from poor posture, lifting incorrectly, obesity and poor spinal hygiene there is no wonder there are so many problems with it
The bones in the lower back are big for a lot of muscle attachment and support of the upper body’s weight resting on it. With that there are big discs in between a-joining vertebra for shock absorption and a fulcrum for movement. Any joint, disc, muscle or the many ligaments can be the cause of significant lower back pain and dysfunction. When we lift more than we should we risk damaging these structures. When we sit for too long we fatigue the muscles and can no longer support the spine in the position it was designed to be in. When we gain a few pounds here and there the whole system get’s fatigued. In fact the best lifestyle suggest to eliminate lower back pain is the lose ten pounds. All of this can add up to a poorly functioning muscular, skeletal and nervous systems.
Your lower spine started taking form when you starting crawling as an infant. The stronger and stronger that it got, the closer you got to those monumental first steps. In order for you to walk you needed to develop the necessary muscle tone and spinal structure. The lower spine develops a nice swooping curve of 45% on top of the sacrum, or tail bone. If your spinal curve is exaggerated or deficient, you become week and prone to injury. What we routinely see in the lower spine is rotation of the bottom two or three vertebra that is an adaptive response to weakness or injury. Your body is always trying to keep you functioning and will rotate your body just take the pressure of the weaker or damaged tissues. It is like the concept of the sprained ankle. You will start to lean on the other one just to avoid the pain and help your body heal. The same is true in your back and a lot of time your sacral-illiac joint becomes a problem. Most people would say it is their hip and point low and off the side of their lower back when showing where the pain is coming from.
Lower back pain in itself is debilitating but what else can be happening? Well, with bones moved out of their proper alignment, loss of your natural curve or even a scoliosis you have an environment conducive to putting pressure and irritation on your nerves leading to more dysfunction in your body. Those big nerves stemming out of your lower spine go to some very important organs and structures. Obviously those nerves go to your buttocks and legs as anyone with sciatica can tell you. The other things you need to think about is that these nerves also serve your bladder, reproductive organs, lower intestinal tract, kidneys and more. You are thinking correctly if you concluded that your lower back pain can be an indication that you have pressure on your nerve system and these structures are probably not function at 100%. You don’t feel them? It doesn’t matter, you can have pressure on your nerves and not experience any symptom until you have lost significant function or damaged enough tissue. If you are dealing with spinal pain, lower back or anywhere, there can be much risk to your overall health. Get it checked by a qualified chiropractor and implement a good program of proper spinal hygiene.
