Chronic Back Pain - Tallahassee Spinal Care

Chiropractic for Back Pain

Back pain is one of the most common work-related injuries and is one of the main reasons why people visit physicians. If you’re suffering from lower back pain, you’re not alone, since nearly 80% of adults suffer from lower back pain at one point in their life. Lower back pain affects both men and women equally, and the pain ranges in intensity, from a constant dull ache to a sharp sensation that can incapacitate a person.

The pain can generally start because of lifting something heavy or by an accident, and it may even develop with time due to changes in the spine caused by age. Irrespective of how it was caused, lower back injuries can be anywhere between downright debilitating and mildly annoying. Most lower back pain is short term or acute and will only last for a couple of days to a few weeks.

Acute back pain tends to be mechanical in nature, due to a disruption in the back components that fit together and move. The pain severity isn’t related to the extent of the physical damage since even a simple strain can lead to excruciating pain in the lower back, making it difficult for you to walk or stand up, while a degenerated or herniated disc can be completely painless.

What Causes Lower Back Pain?

The most common causes of back pain are all mechanical in nature, and most lower back pain cases are caused by the degeneration of the spine as people get older. There are numerous examples of back pain, some of which include:

Sprains and strains

Most instances of acute back pain are due to sprains and strains. Sprains are caused by tearing or overstretching the ligaments, while strains are tears in the muscle or tendon. You can suffer from sprains and strains by improperly lifting something, twisting, overstretching, or lifting something too heavy. These movements can also trigger painful spasms in the back muscles.

Intervertebral disc degeneration

This is one of the most common causes of lower back pain, and it takes place when the rubbery discs lose their integrity due to aging. Intervertebral discs in a healthy back allow flexion, torsion, and bending of the lower back and provide height. The discs lose their cushioning ability as they deteriorate.

Sciatica

Sciatica is when the sciatic nerve is compressed, which results in a burning or shock-like pain in the lower back, which extends down the buttocks and down one leg. In extreme cases, when the nerve is pinched between the bone and the disc the symptoms will not only include pain but muscle weakness and numbness in the leg, due to nerve signals being interrupted. This condition can also be caused by a cyst or tumor pressing on the sciatic nerve.

Traumatic Injury

Injuries while playing sports, car accidents, and falls can injure and damage muscles, ligaments, and tendons, which can result in lower back pain. Traumatic injuries may also compress the spine, which will result in an intervertebral disc herniating or rupturing.

Backpain Chiropractic Care

What kind of mattress/bed should I use? A licensed chiropractor weighs in

So one of the more frequently asked questions that I get in my office is what kind of bed should I be sleeping on? Same with the pillow question I get that a lot. And the reality is what kind of bed you get is a very important decision that you can make in fact you spend more time generally speaking sleeping on your bed or being in that position than really anywhere else in your normal daily life.

So having a good bed to support your spine is critical. Unfortunately from a standpoint of science or how that has been a ton of different studies done to find out what kind of bed is superior. So we have to go off of basically experience and me just having worked with thousands of different patients who’ve tried different beds and me myself having tried approximately ten different mattresses here in the last few years.

So with that being said, the mattress that I tend to recommend the most tend to be memory foam mattresses. I really at this point discourage all my patients from utilizing a spring mattress. The springs and the coils get smashed down on the bed becoming lumpy, as all sorts of just because it’s an uneven surface is really the big thing, versus memory foam. Memory foam has come a long way. Memory foam now tends to retain its shape, it doesn’t have big valleys in the bed, doesn’t tend to sag as much as like a spring mattress would.

So I tend to recommend that you get a memory foam mattress, again, because it’s more so up to preference and what you can sleep on. The best is really what I would recommend is that you get a mattress that you like, and so I would encourage you to try out several different mattresses. A lot of these mattress companies now let you try their mattresses for somewhere between 30 and 100 days. It’s awesome, risk free, so turn out several mattresses. But generally speaking, you want a memory foam mattress and you want to kind of air on the side of the mattress being on the firm end as opposed to one that’s too soft or that would sag when your spine begins to sag is really when you can start getting a lot of additional joint or disk pressure that can really just cause things to be waking up achy and tender.

So the take-home message is get a memory foam mattress and get one that tends to be more firm than saggy. All right, Have a great day.

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Dr. Wainwright is a great Chiropractor and his techniques are very helpful for ailment of the spine and relieve pain and injury. I was in severe pain for several years when I came to see him. I had tried several other chiropractors in...