Not the most cheery question you will ever be asked but it is one that we ask patient’s in our practice regularly. I would hazard a guess that most of us would choose to have a back issue over something being faulty with the master controller of our body (the brain), right?
Back pain and associated problems may be the leading cause of disability WORLDWIDE and will affect 1 in 10 people around the world. Arthritis Research UK estimates this disability costs the UK economy £20 billion and the NHS £2.1 billion (these costs are only continuing to rise with reduced activity and an ageing population) per year. Now, the standard thing to do now would be to highlight why people get low back pain, what stretches and exercises people can do to help ‘fix it’ and how we are the best clinic in the entire universe at sorting any and everyone’s back right out. However it would be disingenuous for me to do so. The truth is you will find multiple practitioners from medical doctors to massage therapists to witch doctors (ok maybe not witch doctors!) who have helped people ‘fix’ their backs. Sometimes even the strange posture correctors and “neck reliever 3000” will have positive effects on people. What is true is there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Lower back pain is rarely down to a serious life threatening condition (cancer, disease etc) but it can be, but often is seriously life limiting. Returning to the question I posed to you earlier, would it surprise you to know that most back problems are actually brain problems? You would agree that the brain not functioning properly would mean your body is unable to function properly either?
A crucial part of having a brain functioning properly is to have a nervous system (including the brain, spinal cords, nerves and receptors) which is communicating effectively and efficiently. The spine aligning, moving and adapting optimally is critical to this happening. When the spinal joints get stuck as an adaptation to stressors (falls, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, poor posture, emotional stress, gravity!) then the communication of the nerves to the brain are negatively impacted. Think of a dimmer light switch being turned down, the brightness of the bulb fades, this is what happens to the electrical signal, blood flow and nutrition flowing to our brains. So how much harder do you think it is for your brain to keep you up against gravity when the spine is stuck in multiple places? A lot harder, this takes more energy for the brain to make this happen so it redistributes energy from elsewhere in the body to help with the fight against gravity. So a brain that is having to work harder is going to be more stressed (think tension, irritation, irritability, pain), leading to stooped posture, inflamed joints, inability to relax, low functioning immune system and, you guessed it, low back pain (other areas of the body are available).
A brain that does not have adequate communication and connection to the body cannot function optimally and therefore neither can the associated person and their body.
Whether it is reduction in pain, increased performance and/or increased brain perception of your internal and external environment, having a spine that is moving and functioning at its best is vital for great health.
I started Adapt Chiropractic because I wanted to help people perform better in their lives, helping clear neural communication pathways helps us see amazing results in the office, come in and see how your brain is performing.
Dr Gareth Ward DC MChiro
