WILTON – SmartCare Physical Therapy in Wilton is offering a free public seminar; teaching you how to take care of your back. This class will teach you how to become an expert on your back, how it works mechanically and how it breaks down mechanically. It will cover the various types of back problems and how they develop, what treatments work, and what does not. Come learn how to prevent these various types of back injuries and how to take control of any existing back pain you may have!
A “bad back” can be any one of many different problems. Back pain may come from muscles, ligaments, joints, discs, or pain referred from organ problems in the belly. Each must be treated differently. A movement exam by a physical therapist can usually identify the mechanics of what is causing the pain, often with more accuracy than an x-ray or even MRI.
The spine is made of vertebra bones stacked on top the other, connected at facet joints and cushioned by discs. The spine is strapped together with ligaments. It is moved and stabilized by muscles. The spine works closely with hips and pelvis bones, which can also be a source of problems. A problem with one structure often stresses another structure so that pain often comes from several issues at once.
Discs are gel-filled cushions between the vertebrae and are a very common source of problems. Bending, sitting, and low lifting can squeeze the vertebrae against the front edge of the discs and push the gel inside the disc toward the back edge. This can cause the back of the disc to bulge (bulging disc) or even split open (ruptured disc). A few people need surgery for this, but most do not. Discs are very good at correcting themselves, especially if the owner knows how to help it along. This is where the so-called McKenzie exercise protocol can identify disc issues and help reverse them. Success rate is very high for this, if the owner does the exercises faithfully.
Then there is the aging process. And this is actually quite reversible. Discs are 80 percent water, when we are 20 years old. Thereafter, discs lose water each year, making them progressively thinner each year. This is a degenerated disc. As the disc thins, weight is shifted from the disc to the nearby facet joints, increasing loads to the joints by more than 200 percent. This can make the joints stiff and arthritic. Arthritic joints get bigger and crowd nearby nerves. This is spinal stenosis. Simple exercises can sponge the discs to get them to absorb water, reversing degeneration and unloading joints.
As discs bulge or degenerate, they end up closer together. This makes some ligaments go slack. Some of these ligaments hold the pelvis to the spine (sacro-iliac joint). Slack ligaments here can cause the pelvis to slip slightly, enough to cause lots of pain. This then causes hip muscles under the buttocks to tighten (piriformis muscle). This compresses hip joint and can encourage hip arthritis. Back problems often cause hip problems this way. This, too, is very reversible with simple stretches and gentle mobilization techniques.
These are mechanical problems that are reversed by correcting back mechanics. This usually includes stretching hamstrings (as these often rob the spine of its mobility), restoring disc water and position with McKenzie-based exercises, stretching hip rotator muscles to unload sacro-iliac and hip joints, re-aligning the pelvis on the spine, stretching tight muscles that pull the bones out of alignment, then strengthening the muscles that keep the spine stable.
That is how physical therapy corrects a bad back. The patient must do their exercises. But these exercises are usually a very small package, only three or four, taking no more than two or three minutes… about as much time and effort as brushing your teeth each day. Once these exercises are identified and established, the patient can avoid a lifetime of chronic back pain and disability. The suffering from a bad back is usually reversible.
Please join us for more information at the public seminar, being held Monday, March 30 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Space is limited, so please call to reserve your seat (207-212-1227). The seminar will be held at the SmartCare Wilton clinic 411 US route 2 East, Wilton, Maine. Please feel free to call with any questions! For more information go to www.smartcarept.com
