Improve your low back pain, now and in the future: 3 essential steps from an Ottawa chiropractor with 15 years of experience

Low back pain is remarkably common. Studies estimate that about 80% of people will experience low back pain in their lifetime. Most people will experience multiple bouts of low back pain in their lifetime. This information is not meant to scare you, but to help you understand that low back pain is a common part of the human experience. Our understanding of low back pain and what makes it worse can help us to get rid of pain when we get it and prevent it from coming back in the future. If you have or have had low back pain, follow these 3 steps for successful outcomes when eliminating and preventing low back pain in the future. 

Our back is important for all types of movement and exercise. Low back pain can reduce our quality of life

Step 1: Find Relief

Low back (lumbar region) pain is complicated and can have many different sources. Sometimes a minor change in the function of your joints and muscles of the lumbar region can lead to very severe pain. Severe pain does not always mean severe injury. When this is the case, simple treatment approaches like heat, cold, over the counter medications, and simple exercises can provide a lot of relief. Research suggests that many people who take charge and seek out relief on their own, have better outcomes in low back pain. Even if relief is not total, you are making progress and that has tremendous value. The luckiest people will get total relief in a short in a few days with no major intervention. If this is you, congratulations. For many other back pain sufferers, we need to seek out other types of solutions. This is where me and my colleagues come in. I am a chiropractor, I have practiced for 15 years and spent almost 10 of those years in Ottawa. I like to think that I am pretty good at my job and provide people with relief from pain on a regular basis. I have enough experience to know that there are lots of different ways to find relief from low back pain, and this is why there are many professions that can help. As a chiropractor, I use joint mobilizations, manipulations, soft tissue therapy, acupuncture, electroacupuncture, graston technique, exercise and advice to help people find relief from low back pain. I also work with physiotherapists, massage therapists, a medical team, an acupuncturist, an osteopath, and a naturopath. We all see people with low back pain and do our best to provide them with relief. When pain strikes, many people experience relief in a short period of time. Tougher cases might require longer treatment plans, and working with a team of individuals like we have at Integrate. Studies have shown that fear and worry are major factors in the severity and duration of low back pain. This means that people who are scared about what their pain means and who worry that it might last their whole life or get worse as they age, will actually go on to experience more severe pain for a longer period of time (talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy). If you can get quick relief from back pain, even if it isn’t complete, this helps to reduce the fear associated with low back pain. Fear and worry are believed to be key drivers of chronic or persistent low back pain. A valuable interaction with a practitioner like a chiropractor or physiotherapist will include a discussion about the back pain that reduces fear and worry in some material way. The strongest form of reassurance, however, is relief from pain. Finding relief, on your own, or with a qualified health care provided like an Ottawa chiropractor (like me) can reduce the chance of long term suffering and eliminate low back pain. 

Low back pain treatment can provide valuable relief, allowing you to work on some of the other factors that inlfuence long-term low back pain

Step 2: Identify Patterns and Triggers of Low Back Pain

Unfortunately, there is no permanent cure for low back pain. So even if you find relief from low back pain through treatment, it is likely to return. When this happens, seek relief, but also observe the pain. Is it worse in the morning or with sitting? Does it feel better when you go for a walk? Which over the counter medications are most helpful? Are there any stretches that provide you with relief? Answers to these questions can help you and your healthcare provider, like a chiropractor or physiotherapist build a strategy to minimize back pain in the future, and maintain helpful habits and routines that can reduce the chances of flare ups in the future. We often want to understand our low back pain in terms of anatomy. We hope that by identifying which disc, joint, muscle or nerve is causing pain might help to get rid of pain and prevent it in the future. Studies have found that the majority of lower back pain cases cannot be attributed to one single anatomical structure. This means that it is very difficult to explain back pain by structure alone. Pain in the back is often associated with functional and sensory changes to the muscles and other sensitive structures of the low back. This is why many people with pain can have normal MRI or x-ray findings. Conversely, studies have shown that people with no back pain (lucky ones, I know) show signs of structural changes like degenerative discs and joints, bulging discs, and even disc protrusions or herniations. This means that we have less than perfect looking backs on diagnostic tests and move forward without pain, and we don’t have to change structural problems to have less low back pain. Identifying patterns of low back pain is often much more valuable than simply testing for structural changes in the back. If you are working with chiropractors or physios (like our teams in Ottawa and Carleton Place) they will consider your triggers and build strategies based on what you see and share. 

Step 3: Build Resilience, in Many Ways

Struggling with persistent low back pain can be exhausting, both physically and mentally. This fatigue can be a cause of back pain in the first place and can allow back pain to persist, even if tissue injuries have healed. Research looking at who suffers more low back pain by Dr. Biering-Sorensen found that reduced endurance in the low back extensor musculature (the ones that run right next to the spine and hold us up for longer periods of bending and sitting) was associated with worse low back pain. This means that engaging in regular exercise, like the bird dog, can help to build up the endurance of those important muscles and reduce the frequency and/or intensity of low back pain. While we know that physical resilience is helpful in eliminating or improving low back pain, emotional and mental resilience are likely to play a role in pain as well. Many studies have found links between mental/emotional characteristics influence the frequency and severity of low back pain. These characteristics include, fear, self-efficacy, avoidance behaviours and feelings about the future. This means that maintaining some mental and emotional resilience, usually by being well-informed and being on a reliable path to improvement/resolution is very important in the recovery process from low back pain.