A Comprehensive Approach to Pain Treatments Will Keep Patients Out of Surgery and Off Pain Medications
The foundation of Core Medical Center is built on the drive to keep patients from going under the knife and off the drug train that is sweeping through our country. Where current medical practices have failed is that they treat symptoms not causes of disease.
Low back pain for example is a symptom. You may treat this with Advil, an anti-inflammatory, to decrease the pain, but what is causing your low back pain is still there. Worse yet that recent cortisone shot or daily meloxicam you have been taking has been allowing that masked condition to get worse and worse. Why, because you have not yet treated the root cause of the symptom. This is where advanced assessments skills and comprehensive treatment models are needed. Discovering the cause of the low back is just part of the battle the other part is knowing how to treat it to make sure the problem does not continue and get worse.
In low back pain cases hyperlordosis is the most common presentation in patients with degenerative disc disease or osteoarthritis in the lumbar spine. In our office we hear this everyday from patients “I have degenerative disc disease, that’s why my back hurts my doctor says there is nothing I can do to stop it.” Well they aren’t necessarily wrong about degenerative disc disease causing them pain but they are missing a big part of the picture and its because when they were diagnosed they were not educated about the condition and many haven’t even seen the x-rays that where taken of them or worse yet their doctor doesn’t know how to treat this condition effectively while prescribing medication that is worsening it.
These patients view degenerative disc disease like it’s an illness or something you contracted and now are doomed to further degenerate? That is simply not true, it’s an acquired condition that is caused by a functional loss in a specific area of the spine. L5-S1 is the most common area in the spine that we see this.
That’s where most of the flexion and extension in the spine occurs. So when you developed hyperlordosis due to tight lowered extremity and low back muscle, you change the angle that the S1 and L5 articulate with one another. This increases friction in that joint, all arthritis or degenerative joint or disc disease is, is a joint that rubs together incorrectly due to a loss in function and eventually breaks down.
It’s just friction. Yes, arthritis takes time to happen that’s why it’s more pronounced, as we get older but not everyone who is 65 years old has the same type, severity or amount of arthritis. Why is that? It’s because loss of function is the cause of it and how long and where they have lost function, determines how much arthritis they end up developing. This is why current medical approaches fail. They fail to realize that its not just one treatment that corrects this problem its multiple ones.
A truly comprehensive approach uses physical rehabilitation to stretch and restore ROM and strength muscles so they support the bones, chiropractic to move the bones so when muscles are stretched and strengthened they are being done so around joints that are in place and in some cases, orthopedic injections with various medicines are needed or even regenerative medicines.
For example, if someone is in such pain they can not do rehab or chiropractic, an anti-inflammatory can be injected into the joint to reduce inflammation and pain. The difference in this case is that the injection is not the main treatment its just a tool to allow the patient to rehab the injury, so they no longer have the issue and do not need repeated injections in the future. Thus, keeping the patient from getting further degeneration and preventing progression.
