BACK PROBLEMS IN GENERAL

Did you know that 83% of the population have back problems?  These problems may result in excruciating pain, but some might just manifest themselves as a lack of mobility, as in once you were able to touch your toes and now you can't!  This may not be noticable as a problem at first, as they don't cause pain, but these signs should not be ignored!  They may lead to more painful conditions later, causing pain, time off work, but most of all a lowering in the quality of life!!

 People tend to think that it is simply hereditary, of course this can be the case, but look at the above statistic, if there are four members of your family, then three will suffer back problems!!  My policy is Get it sorted before it gets worse!!

Just for the record, I know how you feel.  I had excruciating back pain in 2000. I was in so much agony, that at night I would wake my neighbours up screaming in pain!! 

Most back pain such as sciatica, prolapsed (slipped) disc and general lumbar (lower back) aches are simply a "mechanical" problem.  We all know that heavy lifting can cause problems, but in fact most backs "go" when doing a simple task such as picking up a tea bag after it fell on the floor, or just turning quickly, these are known as low gain activities. What happens when doing a high gain activity is, when lifting a TV for example the muscles in the back go into spasm to protect the spine.  But when you bend down to pick up the soap in the shower, (this seems an easy thing to do so the muscles are relaxed), "bang!" your back "goes".

Sciatica

The sciatic type of pain, which is literally a pain in the "butt", can radiate down the back of the leg and go as far as the toes, but the main discomfort is around the buttock area.  There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that a muscle in the buttocks called the piriformis goes into spasm and presses the sciatic nerve ( the biggest in the body, and on average is as thick as your thumb!) against the pelvis.  This is why when you have sciatica it feels as if you have a bruise, and if you press on it, it gets worse, that's because you are pressing the piriformis against the sciatic nerve causing more pain.  This is why sometimes when men are driving, the pain is bad because they are sitting on their wallets and this puts pressure in the sciatic nerve.

The sacro-illiac joint (the joints either side of you back where it joins the pelvis) can dislocate (quite common and nothing to get alarmed about) and cause the before mentioned piriformis muscle to go into spasm which tries to hold the joint together, this is a classic case of sciatica. This is probably the most common cause of sciatica. 

Prolapsed discs.

Discs are a type of cartlidge which is flexible and "cushions" the spine when heavy lifting or bending, but these can prolapse ( the term slipped disc is a falsehood, as they are attatched to the vertebrae both below and above the disc), this causes a bulging effect causing it to press on nerves in the lumbar region. This can cause severe local pain (taking the breath away) but also depending on which disc is bulging could radiate the pain down the leg.  Simillary discs in the neck can also prolapse causing pain down the arm.

Neck pain

Most people do not realise that the neck in fact starts turning from between the shoulder blades, so if you have a stiff neck, or it "cricks", this could be a back problem too, this is best known after a whiplash type of injury.

The problem

Obviously I can only generalise here and not talk of specific cases, but I hope I can give you a general idea to the mysteries of "The Back".

As I stated before most back pains come from a mechanical problem.  These problems are mostly caused by an injury and not from bad posture! let me explain.  Bad posture comes from a bad back, and not vice versa, so "sit up straight or you will get a bad back" is like saying "don't limp or you will get a bad leg"! Now you wouldn't say that would you? What happens when you injure your back  (motoring accidents, sports or falling, especially off horses) is that it cause the back muscles to go into spasm to protect the spine, but these spasms also prevent the ligaments (rubber band type tissue which hold joints together) from stretching.  In turn, this causes them to shorten, then once the muscles relax the ligaments are too short to allow the back to rotate or bend as freely as before. This then puts stresses on the neck when turning your head or on the lower back when bending causing the pain.

How can we restretch the ligaments?  I use Power Assisted Micro-Manipulation (PAMM see the link on the left) to do this. It is the most effective way of restoring suppleness back into the spine.

To visit my home page click "Home" on the left or here www.andyshutt.co.uk