Back pain can greatly diminish your quality of life, making it hard to get through day to day activities and relax at the end of the day. Chronic pain that lowers mobility can be an even bigger cause for concern when you begin to wonder if an invasive and potentially risky surgery is the only option to finally feel some relief.
Fortunately, ongoing chiropractic care with a specialist who understands your needs is a great way to find relief, improve your mobility, and minimise the need for surgery. You can get your quality of life back, enabling you to do and enjoy the things that matter to you most.
Today, we’ll go over how chiropractic care can offer non-surgical relief to those who suffer from chronic back pain.
Can a Chiropractor Prevent the Need for Surgery for Back Pain?
What is Chronic Back Pain?
Back pain becomes chronic when it’s been persistent for longer than three months. Whether it started gradually or all of a sudden, and no matter how it developed, this kind of pain can massively impact your life and at the chronic level will require some kind of management. Back pain often stems from injuries, age, underlying conditions, or a lot of wear-and-tear on your body. Some common causes are arthritis, herniated discs, muscle strain, osteoporosis, spinal stenosis, spinal tumours, or simply poor posture.
Chronic back pain doesn’t look the same for everyone. It can manifest in several ways, and you may have one or a blend of the following:
- Typical Pain: Sharp pains, stabbing pains, aches, or dull aches.
- Spasms: Muscles contracting, causing spasms in the spine.
- Radiating Pain: Pain that extends beyond the spine and is felt across other body parts like your legs.
- Stiffness: Impacted mobility seen in a restricted range of movement.
- Numbness: When nerves in the back are affected, you may experience numbness or tingles in other areas of your body, like your feet.
Non-Surgical Relief for Chronic Back Pain
1. Spinal Manipulation
To start to manage chronic back pain, a chiropractor has to consider what kind of therapy will work best on a person’s body. They focus on finding the root cause of the pain, which is often related to spinal misalignments. The well-known spinal manipulation, or adjustment therapy, is one that is often chosen to assist with pain.
Chiropractors use specialist techniques with a controlled force to realign the joints. When the spine’s joints are in alignment, nerve irritation is reduced, as is inflammation. This helps alleviate pain throughout the body and helps manage chronic back pain. It also increases the range of motion for the patient, as their spine is in better positioning for movement. This helps with pain in the present but also helps to prevent future pain, as the increased range of movement and reduced stress on the body means you’re better able to use your body in a way that supports your muscles rather than exhausts them.
2. Soft Tissue Therapy
Often, a chiropractor will identify soft tissue therapy as a tool for reducing back pain. This can include massaging, stretching, and more hands-on techniques that help to address tightness in your muscles. As tension is released, your body becomes more flexible and your circulation is improved, overall helping you heal and reducing pain.
Techniques include:
- Traditional Massage: Applying pressure to muscles and tense areas to reduce stress.
- Trigger Point Therapy: Finding and applying pressure to specific points where muscle fibres have knotted or banded, which relieves radiating pain from these areas.
- Myofascial Release: The chiropractor addresses the fascia, a tissue connecting muscles and joints, to release stress and improve mobility.
With soft tissue therapy, you can expect a reduction in muscle pain and spasms, because tight muscles are relaxed and inflammation is reduced. You’ll find you have a better range of motion that allows your spine to move freely, and you’ll also be able to restore your posture to prevent future issues. Improved blood flow can speed up healing processes, and the overall reduction in tension leaves you with reduced chronic back pain.
3. Holistic Approaches
Many chiropractors will make recommendations to chronic back pain patients outside of chiropractic care, so that they can make lifestyle changes that support their pain management. These holistic approaches can look like recommendations in:
- Exercise: Your chiropractor may suggest you increase your movement, regularly exercising to build your strength. An active lifestyle with low-impact activities like walking or swimming is great for your spine’s health. Core muscle strengthening helps you support the spine, while flexibility exercises like yoga help you position your body better.
- Posture: Sitting and standing calls for good posture, or you may find yourself at risk of prolonged strain on your spine that causes back pain. Your chiropractor will teach you the best way to straighten your back throughout your day, as well as suggest adjustments to your work space. Ergonomic office setups, for example, will help to support your body and reduce pain.
- Hydration and Diet: A healthy lifestyle means feeding your body well, and hydration especially can help to reduce pain as your body can function better when it isn’t thirsty. Weight management may also be part of your holistic chronic back pain plan.
- Rest: It’s important to have good sleep hygiene and rest well so your body can handle daily stressors, including pain. At the same time, sleeping with the right posture, including the right mattress and pillow, can make a huge difference in managing pain. Breathing exercises that help you reduce stress can be added to this.
- Other Therapies: There are many other ways to reduce pain, such as using heat and cold packs. Your chiropractor will walk you through the best options for your circumstances.
Book in with Hawthorne Chiropractic
Would you like to explore how chiropractic care can help you manage your chronic back pain?
Dr Nicholas Armitage is a Brisbane chiropractor located in Hawthorne on Brisbane’s southside. Nicholas and the team at Hawthorne Chiropractic look forward to helping you find a new lease on life through specialist care. Dr Armitage is also a DVA Chiropractor and works with clients who have been in car accidents.
Chat to us today or visit our Brisbane clinic.
