This might sound strange coming from a chiropractor, but I have to admit, I am not your typical back doctor. You can ask almost any patient I’ve ever taken care of, and they’ll tell you that I rarely focus my attention on the low back. I know, this sounds crazy, but allow me to explain.
In my practice, I focus on NeuroStuctural Correction. I deal almost exclusively with the alignment and mechanics of the head and neck. While I don’t specifically treat back pain, I’ve been able to help many patients with back problems get back to living their lives. It is oftentimes a Structural Shift of one of the top two vertebrae in the neck that is the underlying cause of many Secondary Conditions, including low back pain and sciatica.
The big question is HOW, and a big part of the answer lies in how our bodies send and receive pain signals. No matter where in the body you are experiencing pain, that pain is always processed by the brain. Without normal structural alignment of the head and neck, the brainstem will not be able to properly transmit messages along the spinal cord. This can lead to a hypersensitivity to pain that originates in the central nervous system due to a disruption in brainstem function.
One of the major conditions we see at Precision Chiropractic is Anterior Head Syndrome. This happens when the head and neck shift forward in front of the shoulders. While this may not seem like a big issue, when you consider that the head weighs an average of 12 pounds, it’s easy to see how much strain that can place on the muscles of the back and neck. For every inch forward the head moves, an additional 10 pounds is placed on those back and neck muscles. So, a person whose head has shifted forward 2 inches can be placing a load of over 30 pounds on those muscles!
So, even if you’ve been told that your low back or SI joint is the problem, NeuroStructural Correction may still provide an answer. Although not all instances of back pain are a result of a Structural Shift in the neck, it’s an important piece of the puzzle that is often overlooked by most family doctors and conventional chiropractors. Instead of getting stuck in the cycle of symptomatic treatment, it may be of benefit to you to have someone take a more big-picture approach at looking at how the structure of the neck can impact the rest of the spine and nervous system.
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