Philosophy

The Current System Fails Back Pain Sufferers. Unfortunately, you have not been getting the truth when it comes to getting rid of your back problem. Because diagnosing back pain is a difficult and time-consuming process, many doctors have helped encourage the thought that having back pain is a normal progression of life.

I am here to tell you that it is not. I often tell patients that the advice they've gotten is a half truth because most of the time they are getting only a small portion of the diagnostic and therapeutic options. Each doctor brings to the situation a background from a particular specialty; as a result, he or she is not prepared to look at all of the possible causes of your back problem. Each doctor sees only a small percentage of the possible solutions because he or she bases the treatment on a very small piece of information.

Although doctors are well intentioned, our segmenting of health professionals by specialty works against the patient in areas such as back pain, which requires a broader perspective and an interdisciplinary approach. Only by stepping back to evaluate the whole person and the why of the problem can an effective treatment be found. This approach is often the only means by which some people are able to rid themselves of their back problem.

A New Approach to Back Pain
When patients arrive in our offices, the diagnosis they have received is usually partially true. Most doctors utilize the clearest imaging technology (often an MRI) to diagnose the problem. They usually look for a structural cause, which certainly makes sense initially, and then they recommend anti-inflammatory medications, muscle relaxants, home exercises, physical therapy, and, if none of those things work, surgery.

The search for a structural issue is problematic, because back abnormalities may or may not cause pain. Yes, a patient may have a slight structural abnormality, but that may not actually be at the root of the pain. Almost two-thirds of the people whose MRIs show evidence of structural back abnormalities suffer no pain at all. Because so many people do suffer back pain-with or without structural abnormalities-we obviously need a new diagnostic method.

Thus - we have a three-tiered approach to back pain. We have used it with thousands of patients, and it has proved to us that imbalance in any one of the following three areas may contribute to or cause pain:

• STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS involving bones, muscles, and nerves
• CHEMICAL ACTIONS related to hormonal and digestive issues that affect the body on a chemical and cellular level
• EMOTIONAL STRESS, or the psychological factors that lead to imbalance in the musculoskeletal, nervous, hormonal, and immune systems

Why the Three-Tiered Approach Works
What you eat or how you feel can provoke back pain that is every bit as debilitating as pain from whiplash, arthritis, and other physical causes. When we work with our patients, the effectiveness of our diagnoses and remedies prove that this is true. But this is not to say that the diagnostics of back pain are easy.

For one thing, the symptoms may arise from more than one source. After all, how many people eat really healthfully when they are stressed out? The interaction of these influences can make a diagnosis very complex.

Can pain come solely from a structural issue? Absolutely, but that doesn't always call for surgery. Recently I saw a patient who entered the office complaining of neck and shoulder pain that has bothered her consistently for the past 3 years. Though she had seen other chiropractors and physical therapists, she had complained to me that nothing had ever seemed to help for any prolonged period of time.

During the initial examination, it became pretty evident that even though the symptoms were located in her neck and shoulders, her problem was rooted in something much deeper than just those locations. By taking a postural evaluation of her, I noticed that one shoulder was higher than the other, one hip was considerably higher than the other, and one leg was longer than the other. From this evaluation, I knew that her shoulder and neck symptoms were secondary and that her postural imbalance was the primary cause of her problems. My suspicion was that the other professionals had worked on only her neck and shoulders. We worked out a plan involving stretches and exercises as well as chiropractic corrections. These were designed to correct her postural imbalance, and once her alignment was better, we had less to do to reduce the tightness that had settled in her neck and shoulders.

Diagnoses are all the more complicated because the body has a natural order. The primary cause of the problem needs to be corrected before you can have a long-term effect on what, in many cases, are the more bothersome secondary symptoms. This may mean sacrificing the short-term feel-good type of treatment for the fix that will work over the long term. For example, had I focused on only the neck and shoulder issues of my recent patient, her pain would have continued.

The message to you is to be a patient patient. If your first attempt doesn't work, stay focused on other possibilities. The amazing thing about taking care of the primary factors first is the number of secondary symptoms that disappear soon after.