This holiday season, focus on feeling less pain

The holiday season is a time of renewal that allows us to take a deep breath and a break from our standard busy lives. If you suffer with chronic back pain, it behooves you to take this time to focus on healing. While the holiday season is rife with challenges for back pain sufferers, as discussed in our previous blog post here, there is also plenty of time for restoration. Below you will find a few tips for releasing endorphins, your innate painkillers; these hormones are made in your body to help you experience less pain. Think of them as your holiday helpers- elves working in your body’s factory to prevent pain.

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Christmas offers a unique challenge for people suffering with back pain

Nothing says Christmas like family. But for many of us in America, seeing our family requires traveling great distances. Whether by car, train or plane, there is no best option for people with back pain. The thought of hours spent in unsupportive seats is a true Christmas nightmare. If you are among the millions of Americans suffering with spinal problems this holiday season, be proactive about preventing many of the risk factors that contribute to your back pain.

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Back pain has for too long been stygmatized as a condition of elderly people

Even today, with the internet and all of its information at our fingertips, there seems to be a dearth of awareness regarding simple health issues. Perhaps this void is gettting larger because of the preponderance of misinformation being fed into it. For young people, this capacity to access information seems almost built in. Yet the amount of distractions it provides often overwhelm its positive attributes.

Take back pain for example; yes your back is naturally resilient to injury and pain at a young age; no it will not stay that way forever. Depending on your job, and level of activity, it could reach a point of degradation sooner rather than later. Even if you don’t believe that the spine is a pinnacle of wellness, anyone can agree that back pain is not doing you any favors. 

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Weight lifting is one of the biggest risk factors for sciatica

All shades of athlete benefit from weight lifting as part of a regular muscle building routine. Unfortunately, weight lifting poses a threat to the lower back; the mere act of lifting is one of the most dangerous actions you can perform when it comes to the health of your spine. A further complication of lifting is the added risk for poor posture and/or biomechanics while lifting.

The more weight you lift, the higher the risk of a vertebrae moving out of position and compressing a nerve.  When this vertebral compression affects the sciatic nerve, the pain can spread throughout your legs and even appear in places seemingly unrelated to the injury. The nature of sciatic nerve pain is distinct and tells us to look for dysfunction affecting the sciatic nerve. There are many conditions and injuries that can contribute to sciatica, including:

• Herniated discs
• Piriformis syndrome
• Subluxation 
• Vertebral stress fractures

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Sciatica in Dunedin

Sciatica is a condition of aging. While rates remain low among the youth population, sciatica becomes prominent in young adults and very common for seniors over 60 years. The problem is most often caused by nerve compression; the sciatic nerve, being the longest and largest spinal nerve in the human body, is prone to the effects of wear and tear that affects your spine as you age. 

Characteristics of sciatic nerve pain

• Intensity from mild to severe and frequency from intermittent to constant
• Feelings of burning, numbing, tingling 
• Pain can be dull or sharp and is often accompanied by a feeling of pins and needles

Chiropractic is tailor made for sciatica

There are many causes for sciatica but the most common one is nerve impingement. One of the most commonly identifiable causes of sciatica is subluxation in the lower vertebrae- misaligned vertebral bodies that put pressure on nearby spinal nerves. This means that a proper diagnosis of your sciatic nerve pain is the most important way of guaranteeing success in overcoming it. At Hayes Family Chiropractic, we are dedicated to giving you a thorough examination that determines exactly what is causing your sciatica. From here, we set a proactive course of treatment that aims to restore spinal alignment to relieve pressure on your sciatic nerve.

Overcoming sciatica in Dunedin

We want to help you leave sciatica behind for good. Enacting a regime of stretching and strengthening ensures that the core muscles maintain the alignment of your spine and body’s balance moving forward. If you are interested in treating your sciatic nerve pain the right way, give our office in Dunedin a call to schedule an appointment today. 

The second trimester of pregnancy is when back pain rears its ugly head

For many women, back pain becomes prominent during the second half of pregnancy, and gets progressively worse until the due date. There are a host of reasons for this because, as with all things spine-related, back pain is a much more complex biological process than we have been led to believe. 

With pregnancy, we start by identifying the common suspects, beginning with the hormonal changes of the first trimester. During this time, the hormone relaxin is produced in higher quantities, loosening the ligaments in the pelvis to prepare for childbirth and, crucially, destabilizing the spine. In the second trimester, this instability combines with:

• Your center of gravity shifting forward
• Growing weight of the baby as your pregnancy progresses
• Postural difficulties and changes in the spinal curvature 

So while you may be showing and ready to announce your pregnancy to the world, back pain is lurking in the background trying to spoil the party. 

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Why your back hurts when you become pregnant

Hormone changes set the stage for back pain. Relaxin is the hormone that is produced by the ovary and placenta and it is the hormone that all chiropractors are allowed to hate. Quantities of relaxin peak during the first trimester- it makes your body ready for the passage of the child by loosening ligaments in the pelvis.

How does this cause back pain? 

The pelvis, attached to the base of the spine, is very important for the stability of the upper body. As relaxin increases, and the structures are allowed to move, they quite often move in the wrong direction, causing spinal misalignment and impinging on nerves that exit the spinal canal. With the spine out of alignment, tissues in the surrounding area tighten and strain to support the new position.

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Go ahead, take a seat on that sofa…

…but remember that sitting itself puts pressure on your spine, and melting into an old sofa for 4 hours of Netflix is not doing your back any favors. At Hayes Family Chiropractic, we are not the types to deny anyone their well-earned relaxation hours; however, we do hope that you will keep your spine in mind when it comes to relaxing. A few adjustments to the way you sit while relaxing can vastly improve the relationship between your spine and your sofa. Always remember that good posture is good style! 

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Is your spine suffering for you to look good? 

We would never begrudge anyone the chance to look tall and elegant with the perfect pair of heels. However, it is always worth asking: at what price? High heels change the position of our body, with the most significant change affecting the curvature of your spine. Over time, heels also take a toll on the joints in the lower body, as well as altering your standing posture and the way you walk. This all points in one direction: toward back pain. 

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The sacroiliac joint is one of the most important joints in the body

And that is saying something considering that every joint in your body is a focal point of movement and therefore extremely important. The sacroiliac joint just happens to be located at a crucial confluence in the body, linking the pelvis bone (iliac) to the lowest part of the spine (the sacrum). Supported and stabilized by a host of ligaments and muscles, the sacroiliac joint conducts the transfer of forces between the upper body and legs. Problems with the sacroiliac joint include: 

• Weakness in the surrounding muscles
• Tightness/ stiffness in the joint or surrounding muscles
• Acute injury of the joint
• Inflammation in the joint capsule

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