Website by Beth Eastwood
Monday, 11 December, 2006
Melbourne Street Chiropractic Centre 231 Melbourne Street, North Adelaide SA 5006 Ph: (08) 8239 1922 Fax: (08) 8239 0499 Email: spineandsport@bigpond.com.au
Many people have asked similar questions and voiced the same concerns, below you will find some of these questions and the answers to them.
1. Do you know what the problem is?
2. Is my back out or is it my muscles?
4. Why does it take so long to recover?
5. Why do I have to keep coming back?
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1. Do you know what the problem is?
The majority of people that we see have decreasing flexibility which is due to a combination of ageing and posture. This results in the spinal fixations. The spinal fixations lead to joint sprains, muscle spasms and disc injuries. You can feel this as either neck pain, arm pain, headaches, back pain or leg pain.
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2. Is my back out or is it my muscles?
Backs do not go out, they fixate or lock at the facet joints. This irritates the joint nerves and often irritates the spinal nerves as they leave the spinal cord. The byproduct of this is the muscle spasm and referred pain that you feel.
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The true pinched or compressed nerves are found during prolapsed disc and spinal canal stenosis. The remaining sharp pains, whether they are local or referred, are the result of the locked joints, sprained joints, annular tears in the discs and associated inflammation of the spinal ligaments and muscle attachments.
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4. Why does it take so long to recover?
It can take a few weeks in some cases to get pain relief. But, in other cases it can take months for you to feel strong and confident that your injury will not recur. Your recovery depends on the combination of the following:
• how fit you are,
• how severe your injury is,
• how degenerate your joints and discs are,
• the work you do,
• and the exercise that you don’t do.
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5. Why do I have to keep coming back?
In the initial phase of care our aim is to get pain relief and restore function to the spine. There are two main reasons why the fixations persist. The first is that the spinal fixations have been present for a long while and fibrous contracture has developed in the spinal ligaments. The second reason is muscle spasm. When
this is present, it causes a return of the fixation, and therefore will take repeated treatments of manipulation (the chiropractic word for this is Adjustments) in close intervals to overcome the fixations and return good motion to the spine.
Each treatment builds upon the one before until you feel great. You may need to rest from sport or other activities to help me help you. Rehabilitation and maintenance care are not compulsory. However, many people benefit from
this service. We teach the exercises required to build spinal flexibility and abdominal muscle strength and co-ordination. The aim is to maintain a pain free state and prevent recurrence of the injury. At this stage you will
feel strong and agile, allowing you to get back into life!
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We have had great success using a variety of manipulative and soft tissue release techniques in the treatment and management of the following:
• headaches,
• neck pain,
• arm pain,
• carpel tunnel,
• tennis elbow,
• frozen shoulder,
• middle back pain,
• lower back pain,
• hip and thigh pain,
• calf pain.
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