Tag Archive for: bulging disc

Back Pain

Three Reasons Back Pain Sufferers Avoid Exercise (and what you can do)

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80% of the population suffers from what we call “non-specific low back pain”. Low back pain is typically chronic, comes out of nowhere, you have good days and bad days, and it’s not usually due to any recent or major accident or fall. If you’ve got back pain and you’re reading this – odds are pretty good that you suffer from non-specific low back pain. Research shows that exercise is the best treatment for non-specific low back pain.

But what do you do when your back pain keeps you from the thing that’s supposed to help you?

Here are three of the most common reasons I see that keep people with low back pain from exercising – and some tips for what you can do:

1. Fear

Let’s face it – back pain is scary.

This is the number one reason back pain sufferers don’t exercise. Is the pain you’re feeling good or bad? Should you be feeling any pain at all? Pain is confusing. When you experience pain during exercise, it can be difficult to know if it’s normal or a warning sign. For many, the safest thing to do (as they see it) is avoid any exercise or movement altogether until the pain subsides.

The problem is – when you try to resume movement again – the pain comes right back – and then you’re caught in a vicious cycle.

What you need to figure out is which movements are “good” and which movements are “bad” – and the good news is your body is going to tell you. If you hurt a little at first – but feel better the more you do something – and aren’t worse after – you can consider that movement generally safe and be encouraged to keep trying it.

But if you hurt during – and feel worse after – then that’s a sign to stop and back off. Pain is not something to fear – it’s just information. What’s important is how your back pain behaves over a period of time with a certain activity.

Fear of pain comes from not knowing what it is or what to do – but when you figure out how to “speak pain” – the fear goes away and you can have control over your body again.

2. Bulging Discs

Most people who suffer from long-standing low back pain eventually find themselves getting an MRI. And 60-70% of the time, it will show one or more bulging discs.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that most people over the age of 40 walk around with bulging discs – and that 65% of them feel no pain at all. In other words, if you’ve got a bulging disc, you can’t be certain it’s the cause of your back pain. Research proves this. And being told you’ve got a bulging disc is not a reason alone to avoid exercise.

Movement is actually one of the best things you can do for a bulging disc.

It may require some customization of your current exercise routine, but a movement specialist can help you with this. Don’t just stop or avoid exercise altogether just because you’ve been told you have a bulging disc. Go back to the rules of pain I mentioned above and let that be your guide instead.

3. You Were Told to Rest

Well-meaning doctors and family members who aren’t up to date on the latest back pain research will advise you to rest every time you experience back pain.

This might be reasonable advice when you’re dealing with an acute (sudden) episode of back pain – but it’s terrible advice for chronic, non-specific low back pain sufferers.

Rest is one of the worst things someone with chronic back pain can do. Since most people don’t have a thorough understanding of this concept, they find themselves in a yo-yo effect.

They rest to “heal” their back pain. When it’s gone they return to exercise – only to hurt their back again. I’ve seen so many people fall victim to this perpetuating cycle and it’s a big reason why so many back pain sufferers just give up on exercise entirely.

If it’s been a long time since you’ve exercised – start with 10 min of daily walking.

Walking is generally known to be one of the best things you can do for back pain. If for some reason walking increases your back pain – then that’s a good reason to see a back pain specialist (ideally one who understands how to heal your back with movement versus pills and procedures).

If you’re suffering from chronic, non-specific low back pain – and you’ve stopped exercising – know that you’re not alone.

This is such a confusing topic and there are so many mixed messages out there about what the “right” and “wrong” thing to do is. Don’t try to go at it alone. Exercise is good for your back, but you may just need a little help and guidance to get there.

Need help with Back Pain now? Are you Local to Portsmouth, NH? CLICK HERE to speak with one of my specialists. We will see what’s been going on with you – and get you on a treatment plan right away.

We will be talking all about Back Pain in our upcoming Masterclass! Its free – via zoom – on September 19th. Reserve your seat here!   Learn how to manage your back pain on your own – and get back to doing the activities that you love – pain free!

Dr. Carrie Jose, Physical Therapist and Pilates expert, owns CJ Physical Therapy & Pilates in Portsmouth and writes for Seacoast Media Group. To request a free copy of her guide to back pain CLICK HERE or to get in touch, email her at [email protected].

Three Easy Tips to Keep your Back from “Going Out”

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Three Easy Tips to Keep your Back from “Going Out”

Most people – four out of five to be exact! – will experience a debilitating back pain episode at one point during their lives, and typically we put more effort into caring for our backs during those times than when we’re feeling good. But it’s critical that we take good care of our backs all the time, not just when we’re in pain!

1. Stand Up & Take a Load Off

When we sit for too long, the burden of our weight is placed abnormally on our spine and can cause damage over time. Before long, those small loads add up to real pain. It makes sense when you consider that our bodies were designed to stand, sit, crawl, run, kneel, bend and move through the world in many different ways. It was never designed to sit in one position for prolonged periods, day after day. Sit too long, too often, and it can lead to bulging discs and weak, brittle muscles that are prone to tearing and other damage.

The solution? Limit your sitting to half-hour periods with a few minutes of standing in between, and you’ll reduce the uni-directional forces on your spine. In other words, if you sit for a long time at work or at home, stand up and walk around a little bit every thirty minutes. Aside from participating in regular strengthening exercise, like Pilates, this is the easiest way for the average person to prevent back injury (and heal your back faster if you already have an injury).

2. Watch for Curves

We have natural curves in our spine that help us handle stress and loads.  Whether sitting or standing, it’s important to maintain these curves.  When standing, our spinal curves occur more naturally and are usually easier to maintain.  When we sit, the protective curves in our spine are harder to maintain and often disappear.  And while a healthy core and strong back muscles are important to back health, they won’t protect your back if you sit for long periods, or when the curve in your lumbar area disappears while you’re sitting.

Fortunately, the solution is as simple as rolling up a towel and placing it between your chair or car seat and the small of your back (just above the belt line). Using a purpose-designed lumbar roll is my favorite choice, and what I use for low-back support. You can use a lumbar roll in your office chair, car, and on the plane if you’re flying! If you want to learn where you can get on of your own contact us about them here. Or  see in more detail how to use them in our free e-book!

3. Extend instead of Bend

The human spine (and entire body) craves balance, which means both extension and flexion.  But we spend the majority of our time in flexion, bending over to put shoes and socks on, brushing our teeth, driving, sitting at work and then driving home. At home we bend forward to cook, sit some more as we eat and then curl up on our couch or an easy chair. As long as we’re not gymnasts or circus performers, it’s safe to say we could all use a little more extension in our day.

A really good exercise is to stand and place your hands on your lower back for support and then arch back as far as you can go.  Repeat this 10 times, at least once per day.  This is also a great activity to do when you are interrupting your sitting during the day.  If you’ve never arched you back like this before, it may feel stiff or even hurt a little at first. But, with a gradual increase in frequency, it will feel less stiff and more natural over the course of a few days.  If it doesn’t, or becomes troublesome for you, stop and consult with a qualified physical therapist who specializes in back pain.

If you like these tips and want to learn even more ways to prevent debilitating back pain episodes, check out our FREE back pain report right here!

It reveals five easy ways (plus two bonus tips!) that are PROVEN to help you ease back pain quickly – without pain medication, frequent doctor’s visits, or surgery. And don’t forget to check out our Pilates programs if you’re looking for a way to exercise that will target – and resolve – back pain!

Failed Back Surgery Syndrome. What you need to know.

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Failed Back Surgery Syndrome. What you need to know.

I was recently doing some research on how often back surgery fails – and I came across more than one research paper talking about “Failed Back Surgery Syndrome”.

Say what?

I knew that approximately 50% of back surgeries were unsuccessful, but I didn’t know it was common enough that they had actually coined the term!

Failed Back Surgery Syndrome refers to patients with chronic, long standing back pain, with or without referred leg pain, who have had one or more surgical interventions that have failed to treat the pain.

It’s also known as “post-surgical spine syndrome” – and it’s estimated to occur in 20 – 40% of all surgical cases.

A systematic review of the literature of patients under the age of 70 suffering from disc herniations, and who underwent discectomies, found that between 5 and 36% of these folks suffered from recurring back or leg pain after 2 years. Another study by Skolaksy et al investigating 260 patients with degenerative changes in their spine who underwent surgery for spinal stenosis – found that almost 30% of these patients had either no change – or increased pain – 12 months after surgical laminectomy with or without lumbar fusion.

Despite these statistics, approximately 500,000 Americans are still undergoing back surgery every year to relieve their pain.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimates back surgery to cost us $11 billion annually. That’s a lot of money to spend on something that isn’t even guaranteed to work.

So why ARE we spending so much money on back surgery when for almost half of these people, it’s not successful?

Well first, back pain is not fun. It can be excruciating, debilitating, and can have a significant impact on your life and happiness. If you’re told surgery will fix your problem (and it often does take your pain away in the short-term), why wouldn’t you choose this option?

Second, there is a major problem with the way back pain is diagnosed.

Most of the time, back pain is diagnosed via imaging (X-rays or MRI’s) and a treatment plan is based off of the results of those images. If you’ve got a bulging disc with severe leg pain or numbness, they recommend you cut it out. If you’ve got severe degenerative changes causing stenosis, they recommend fusion.

Back pain should always be diagnosed first with specialized movement testing.

Why?

Because we now know from research that 70-80% of all back pain is considered “mechanical”- meaning the root cause or your pain is due to poor mobility or movement habits, and not actually caused by the findings in your images.

Findings such as bulging discs, disc degeneration, and stenosis are all a normal part of aging and there are plenty of people out there who have these exact same findings and no pain at all. What typically happens is that your inefficient movement patterns, or immobility problems, will exacerbate these structures and findings – and that is when you start to experience pain.

This explains why so many back surgeries are unsuccessful and why more people than necessary end up with Failed Back Surgery Syndrome. When underlying movement or mobility problems go undiagnosed, and are not addressed first, your symptoms come back. It may not be right away, and could be up to a few years, but they do return. And sadly, they become even more difficult to address after one or more surgery has occurred.

So if you’ve got back pain and are considering surgery, definitely think twice and be sure you’ve been fully examined by a mechanical back pain expert FIRST.

And if you’ve already had back surgery and it didn’t work to fully resolve your symptoms and get you back to doing everything you love to do – there’s still hope for you – a good place to start is with a proper mechanical back pain exam to see what was missed prior to your surgery.

Dr. Carrie Jose, Physical Therapist and Pilates expert, owns CJ Physical Therapy & Pilates in Portsmouth and writes for Seacoast Media Group. To get in touch, or to catch a replay of her online Back Pain & Sciatica Masterclass – visit cjphysicaltherapy.com

Could your Hamstring Strain Actually be a Back Problem?

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Have you ever strained your hamstring but the pain just doesn’t go away?

It’s been months since you first started hurting, you can’t actually remember how you injured it (it just started aching one day), you’ve been stretching and massaging it diligently, yet your hamstring still hurts.

This happened to a recent client of ours (“Sandy”).

Sandy was a runner and regular gym goer, who one day noticed an ache in her hamstring. She assumed she had just overdone it working out. She rested it a few days and the pain went away, but when she tried to get back to running she couldn’t. Her hamstring pain came right back. Thinking she hadn’t let it heal enough, she went back to resting it, but this time, decided to add some massage and stretching to her routine. 

A few weeks later… you guessed it… Sandy still couldn’t run.

She also noticed the pain in her hamstring started to feel “different.” It was becoming more deep and achy and started to hurt all the time instead of only when she tried to exert it. It even hurt when she sat for too long. She still couldn’t run and was starting to get worried. Her doctor told her it was just a “strain” and that she had to let it heal. The problem was that it wasn’t healing. Several months had now gone by and she was running out of exercises and stretches to try that would “let it heal.”

Luckily, Sandy attended our recent back pain and sciatica class and realized that the pain in her hamstring might not be a strain at all. 

And her instincts were right! Let me explain.

When you truly strain a muscle, it means you have done damage to your muscle tissue. Although it’s possible to have chronic problems from a strain that isn’t rehabilitated properly, strains typically do in fact heal. Once the inflammation from the tissue damage goes away, and you start doing the proper stretching and strengthening, your muscle eventually gets back to normal. Until a muscle strain is fully healed, it will typically be aggravated if you accidentally over-stretch it or exert it. But you usually don’t feel anything when you’re resting the muscle. In Sandy’s case, her hamstring was starting to feel worse when she was resting — the longer she sat, the worse she felt. Your hamstring is completely relaxed when you are sitting, so something wasn’t adding up.

This was the first sign we were likely dealing with something other than a “hamstring strain.” The second sign was that we could take her pain away by moving her back! Yes, you heard that right.

By moving and stretching her back in a specific way, we were able to significantly relieve the pain in her hamstring.

The reason her hamstring was actually hurting was because a nerve had been aggravated in her back. The nerve was causing pain to radiate into her thigh. That’s why it hurt when she sat for too long and it’s why she couldn’t tolerate any running. Sitting puts more stretch and pressure on the nerves in your back, and running puts a lot of compression through your back. Generally speaking, nerves don’t like to be stretched, especially aggravated nerves, and they don’t like to be compressed if they are aggravated either. By stretching her back in a very specific way, we were able to relieve the pressure from the nerve that was giving Sandy her “hamstring strain.” This confirmed that she was indeed having a back problem.

Has anything like this ever happened to you?

If you’ve got pain anywhere in your buttocks, hip, thigh, or leg that isn’t going away — especially if you’ve done your due diligence and tried all the “right things” — it’s possible you could have a back problem causing this pain instead. These types of back problems are easily missed if you don’t know how to accurately assess them and it won’t be picked up by an MRI or X-ray. The best way to figure this out is through specialized movement testing, like we did with Sandy. 

We talked all about this in our recent back pain and sciatica class. If you want access to the recording, just call our office: 603-380-7902. If you want to take the next step and meet us in person — you can schedule a FREE Discovery Session with one of our specialists right here! 

The Location of Your Pain may NOT be its Source…

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One of the most confusing topics we deal with in our practice is pain. And there’s lots of advice out there on what to do about it…

Should you rest or move? Apply heat or ice? See a doctor or let it go away on its own?

Before you can even think about a solution to your pain, you must first accurately determine where it’s coming from. If you have pain in your knee, but it’s actually coming from your back, the best knee treatment in the world is not going to fix it.

Inaccurate diagnosis of pain is a BIG reason why so many people suffer longer than they need to, and undergo unnecessary surgeries.

You must accurately determine the source of your pain for treatment to be effective, and the location of your pain alone is not a reliable way to do that.

For example, I’ve seen people in my office with what they think is unrelenting tennis elbow, only to find out it was actually a problem in their neck causing it. I’ve seen people disappointed after a failed knee surgery, because the problem was never in their knee and actually coming from their back.

Isolated extremity pain (knees, elbows, shoulders) is one of the most misdiagnosed problems we see in our office.

A recent study by Richard Rosedale, et al. in the Journal of Manipulative Therapy investigated this – and it was found that over 40% of people suffering from isolated extremity pain actually had a spinal source of symptoms.

In other words, their extremity pain was actually coming from their neck or back.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen folks with unexplained shoulder pain lasting months or years get better as soon as we begin treating their neck, even though they never had neck pain.

Same for knees…

It’s possible to have knee pain that is caused by your back, without ever hurting your back!

Confused? I don’t blame you.

But more importantly, how do you figure out the source of your pain when it’s not always where you’re feeling it?

As already mentioned, the most common place for this to happen is with extremities. If you’ve got shoulder, elbow, knee or foot pain – and you don’t ever recall a specific injury to it – you MUST consider that it could be coming from your spine.

There’s a 44% chance that it is!

Where this gets really confusing is that typically your doctor will order an MRI when you’ve got isolated knee or shoulder pain that won’t go away. And if you’re over 40 years old, the MRI will almost always show “something” – a torn rotator cuff, torn meniscus, arthritis, or wear and tear.

Remember that these are normal signs of aging in everyone, and may not be the cause of your pain.

If you haven’t already had your spine checked properly as a possible source, you can’t rely on these findings (or the location of your pain) as an accurate diagnosis. That is how people end up having surgeries they don’t really need.

Whenever someone comes into our office with isolated extremity pain, we don’t even look at it without an exam of their neck and back first.

By moving your spine repeatedly, and in certain directions, we can often produce – or take away – the pain you’re feeling in your knee or shoulder.

Why?

Because if the pain in your extremity is caused by a pinched or aggravated nerve, moving your spine around is going to influence that, and tell us where the source really is.

An MRI and X-ray won’t be able to determine this for you with certainty – because sometimes your nerve only gets irritated when you move a certain way – or when you’re in a certain position. Since MRI’s and X-rays can’t see what’s going on while you’re moving, you can’t rely on those tests alone to tell you exactly where your pain is coming from.

If you’ve had pain in one of your extremities for a while now, and it’s not going away, it’s possible you’ve missed the source.

That source could be your spine.

And if you’re considering some kind of surgery or procedure, you definitely want to rule that out first.

Specialized movement exams like we do in our office are one of the most reliable ways to figure this out. If you’ve had unexplained pain in your knee or shoulder that isn’t going away, CLICK HERE to request a Free Discovery Session with one of our specialists.

Holding Knee with Arthritis

When Traditional Physical Therapy Fails…

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I’ve been a physical therapist for a very long time — 20 years to be exact — and I’ve seen a lot of changes in healthcare over the course of my career. One of the biggest (and saddest) changes I’ve seen in my field is the overcrowding of clinics. As reimbursements from insurance companies go down, traditional physical therapy clinics have been forced to increase their patient volume. That means you rarely get to spend time with your therapist, and your treatment sessions consist of repetitive exercise sets that you typically can do at the gym or on your own.

If you do manage to get some one-on-one time with your therapist, whether it be for hands-on-care or actual consultation about what’s going on with you, it’s often just a quick 20 minutes. The rest of the time, your poor therapist is usually held hostage by a computer because of all the documentation requirements placed on them, and you’re left on your own doing all those exercises.

Has this happened to you?

With this model of care, it’s impossible for the quality of your treatment NOT to suffer. Many folks I speak with say that traditional physical therapy is a “waste of time.” 

Why bother going when they can do everything on their own at home?

Worse, when traditional physical therapy does fail, most people go back to their doctors hoping for a different solution. Many times, the next step for these folks involves unwanted procedures, pain pills, or surgery.

So what do you do if you don’t want to go down the medical route of procedures or surgery, but the “physical therapy” didn’t work?

Well first, you need to understand what physical therapy actually is, seek that out, and don’t settle for anything less.

Physical therapy is NOT just a bunch of general exercises or ultrasound — at least it’s not supposed to be. After your pain is gone and your problem has been resolved, the role of general exercise is to keep your pain gone, and to continue optimizing your strength, performance, and mobility. That’s what we use our Pilates program for.

When you receive proper physical therapy in the way it was intended, it looks something like this…

Your therapist will first give you a proper examination and an actual diagnosis. Your physical therapy diagnosis might be different than your medical diagnosis. In fact, it should be. For example, you may come to us with a diagnosis of “bulging disc,” but our job is to figure out WHY your disc is bulging. Our diagnosis is going to be related to the specific movements, habits, and musculoskeletal deficiencies that led you to having that problem in the first place (discs don’t just bulge spontaneously). Once we know that, we can come up with a plan for you.

Here’s an example…

Let’s say your bulging disc is due to poor sitting posture, a weak core, and poor mobility in your spine. When your spine doesn’t move well and you sit too much, compensations like bulging discs can occur. Your plan might then consist of strategies for better, less painful sitting postures, as well as some help getting your spine back to full mobility again — so that your bulging disc no longer irritates you.

At this stage in your treatment, any “exercises” given to you should be corrective, very specific to your problem, and should be prescribed specifically to you.

There should be nothing cookie-cutter or general about them — and they should be working!

When you have the right “movement prescription” and when your exercises are corrective versus general — your pain goes away, your problem gets resolved, and most importantly, you’ll know exactly why and can even replicate this on your own in the future.

Once this has all been achieved, THEN we can get you back to the fun stuff like exercises at the gym, Pilates, or yoga — the stuff that is designed to keep you feeling healthy, active, and mobile.

Getting rid of something like back, knee, or neck pain doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to involve pills, procedures, or surgery. But it may require you to be a bit open-minded about HOW you receive physical therapy.

If you’ve had a frustrating experience with physical therapy in the past, don’t just give up!

Consider working with a specialist practice like ours that operates differently from traditional clinics.

Click here to request a Discovery Visit.

It’s completely FREE! A discovery session serves as an opportunity for you to “discover” what’s going on with your body and what we do in our practice. You’ll speak with one of my specialists, find out if we’re a good fit for you, and then get started on a path to natural recovery!

Is running bad for your knees?

Movement is medicine (when prescribed properly)

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I have a confession to make. A few months ago I hurt my own back.

Yes, you read that correctly, the back pain expert injured her own back! I preach this ALL the time to my clients, but one of the reasons I’m so passionate about helping people with back problems is because the treatment is not cookie-cutter. But once we find what works for you, physical therapy is so effective and rewarding.

In my case, I was able to use very specific movements to get rid of my back pain, and then start focusing on strengthening exercises to keep it gone. Don’t get me wrong, there were moments when I wanted to call my doctor and ask him for pain pills, and even the idea of an injection crossed my mind once or twice. But because I keep up with the research, I know that pills and injections really don’t work well for long-term results. Aside from the many potential complications and side effects, quick-fix treatments tend to mask your pain and keep you from doing the real work that is necessary to keep the problem from recurring in the future.

At CJPT & Pilates, long-term solutions are the only thing we are interested in. We believe that movement is medicine.

For all musculoskeletal injuries, including back pain, the research shows that movement and exercise really is the best course of treatment in about 80% of all cases. OK, I know what you’re thinking. If it were that easy, why can’t you just go to the gym, to yoga, or follow an exercise video at home to get rid of your own back or knee pain?

It’s because although movement IS medicine, it only works when prescribed for you properly.

Let me explain.

I’m working with a gentleman right now who’s had back pain for over a year. It started after a car accident. He’s tried regular physical therapy, chiropractic, steroid injections and radiofrequency ablation. None of it worked. He feels good when he exercises and moves around, but the pain always comes back.

When he came to see us, the really interesting thing I noticed about his back was when he put himself in certain positions, he would stand up and literally be crooked. His spine would shift to one side, and become very painful and stiff. In the PT-world we call this a lateral shift, and it’s a sign that indicates he likely has a bulging disc. The great thing about a bulging disc is that they tend to respond very well to corrective movements. Once we know what movement “fixes” you, we can prescribe it to you. This gentleman can now make himself straight and get rid of his back pain in under a minute. Of course the goal is to get him to the point where he no longer needs this corrective movement, but for now, it quite literally is his medicine.

I think the reason more people don’t use this approach is because it requires a little bit of work, and you don’t often see the results immediately. When you get an injection, or even take a pill, the pain is gone in a few hours and it will often stay gone for a period of time without you really needing to do much. With movement, you have to stick with it and do it correctly for it to work. And although you can get an immediate reduction in pain from the correctly prescribed movement, it takes several weeks for it to start to stick and produce long-term relief.

But here’s the best part about using movement as medicine — it’s natural, there are no harmful side-effects, and you can do it completely on your own.

If you’ve been suffering in pain for awhile and tired of using pills or quick fixes to manage your pain, sign up for a FREE Discovery Session with us to find out if movement can be your medicine instead! You can also check out our free back pain guide right here.

tight hips

The Big Reason why Back Pain Keeps Coming Back

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If you’re reading this and you’re over the age of 40, odds are pretty good that you’ve experienced back pain at some point in your life. The odds are also pretty good that you’ve experienced back pain more than once.

Every few months or maybe once per year – your back “acts up”. You get rid of it – but it ALWAYS comes back.

Sound familiar?

Well… you’re not alone. Four out of five people are impacted by back pain, and for many, it’s a constant back-and-forth year after year.

But why? Why does back pain always seem to come back?

There are essentially two main reasons:

  1. Back pain is primarily addressed with “quick-fixes” and passive modalities
  2. You (or your doctor) let MRIs make the decisions about your treatment

Quick fixes and passive modalities…

This is the most common way people tend to address their back pain. And it’s the number one reason why it always comes back.

What is a passive modality? It’s something that is done TO you. It’s where you walk in somewhere, lay on a table, and you receive some kind of treatment. This could be chiropractic care, massage, craniosacral therapy, acupuncture, even injections and surgery. You have no active role in the process — it’s completely passive.

Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with these treatments. They are GREAT for getting rid or your back pain — and quite often quickly. And they are also great for helping you with other problems, such a stress relief. (I LOVE getting my massage once per month!)

But when your back pain keeps coming back, it’s a big sign something is missing. These treatments are only addressing your symptoms – for example – tight muscles, tension in your nerves, stiff or out of place joints. These things are all the result of your back problem – not the cause.

And it’s the number one reason why your back problem keeps coming back – because the root cause – the thing that is causing you to have tight muscles or stiff joints – is never addressed.

When MRI’s make the decision…

Traditionally, the medical community diagnoses your back pain with images. They use X-rays and MRI’s to see what’s going on inside your spine, and from there, they make a determination of what your treatment should be.

This is a big problem, because what shows up in your MRI isn’t always the reason for your pain. For example, your MRI might show a herniated or bulging disc in your spine. Your doctor will immediately blame that for your pain. And depending on how “bad” it looks, they may suggest injections or surgery. But the truth is, another person could have the exact same visual results as you on their MRI and have no back pain at all.

So why is it that one person can have a bulging disc with no back pain, and another person can have a bulging disc with excruciating back pain?

It’s because the root cause of back pain is more complicated than your anatomy. Research has shown time and time again that 80% of all back pain is primarily influenced by your habits and the way you move, not by what’s going on structurally in your spine.

So you can go in and cut out the disc, but if you don’t identify and correct your poor movement habits that led to that bulging disc in the first place — it’s either going to come back or bulge somewhere else. It’s why surgery only has a 50% success rate for helping people keep back pain away for the long-term.

If you’re confused right now – I don’t blame you.

It’s why so many people suffer from back pain!

It’s also why we offer the opportunity for you to come talk to us for FREE if you’re tired of suffering from back pain with no real answers.

Click here to request a FREE Discovery Session with on of my specialists.

You can also download this FREE GUIDE on how taking care of back pain on your own. It was written especially with the recent quarantine in mind – where so many people have been stuck at home and off their routines.

Either way, you should know that if you want your back pain to stop coming back — it IS possible. You just might have the wrong approach and could benefit from some specialist care to finally get you going in the right direction.

Is Quarantine Turning Into a (Literal) Pain in Your Butt?

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We are about 5 weeks into social distancing and doing our best to flatten the curve. Although we are all coming together as a country to do our moral duty and fight the spread of Covid-19, it doesn’t come without consequences.

More screen time and more couch time are wreaking havoc on our bodies.

Most people I speak with are making a concerted effort to be as active as they can during the day. But even the best efforts are not combatting the extra bending and sitting that is happening. It’s almost impossible to avoid it. Due to social distancing and more people working from home than ever before, our primary way of “gathering,” seeing loved ones, and communicating with co-workers is now totally digital.

Whether we like it or not, we are hunched over and leaning forward more than ever — and it’s becoming a pain in the butt, quite literally.

In our last blog post I talked about the difference between “good pain” and “bad pain.” Since then, I’ve spoken to many of you over the phone about your concerns. One of the most common questions that came across this week was about pain in your butt, and not the figurative kind!

Yes, too much sitting can cause pain in your butt, but not for the reasons you might think…

One person I spoke with thought it might be due to the hard kitchen chair he was sitting on. Makes sense, right? But when he added a cushion, and then tried moving to the recliner to do his work and online social gatherings, the pain in his butt got worse.

So he did what most of us do, and went straight to Google.

He thought that maybe he had “piriformis syndrome” and started doing the recommended stretches. The pain in his butt started to subside a little, but then spread to the back of his thigh. He thought the pain in his thigh might be due to the stretches and that it was a good thing. But after about a week of this, he woke up one morning unable to move his back! That is when he called me.

I explained that the pain in his butt was NOT due to piriformis syndrome like “Dr. Google” told him. It was actually coming from his lower back. All the extra sitting was putting pressure on his disc, which was putting pressure on his nerve, and the result was pain in his butt. Without realizing the true cause of his problem, he accidentally started doing stretches that made his problem worse. It’s very common to have a back problem and not experience any back pain. Back problems can manifest in your butt, thigh, or lower leg, and very often get confused with tight muscles that just need to be stretched. If you do the wrong stretches, you will make your problems worse and you WILL end up with back pain – often severe and seemingly out of nowhere.

Luckily, we were able to hop on a Zoom session and give him the correct stretches to do. Within a few weeks, he no longer had pain in his butt, and he knew what to do to keep it from coming back.

If quarantining is giving you a (literal) pain in your butt right now, don’t rely on Google to figure out your pain — talk to us!

We’ve been opening up extra slots on our schedules just to talk to people and help them figure out anything new or strange that might be going on.

All you have to do is fill out this quick form to request a call with one of our specialists.