Understanding the Spine and the Joint Complex
Let’s understand a little bit about how the body functions. So when we look at the spine, our spine is made up of several objects here. We have the vertebrae, the disc, the ligament that holds the spine together, the muscles that attach to the bone, and the nerve. That whole component is the joint complex. Any one of those components could be misaligned or get damaged and cause low back pain.
So when we’re looking at the spine, we wanna see the disc here—the center, the nucleus. We want that to be in the center of the spine. Because of poor posture, stress, and trauma throughout time, and not taking care of it, that disc will begin to slowly exit from its house and go either posterior, to the back part of the spinal canal, or to the nerves.
Worst-case scenario, without being taken care of, then all of a sudden we get a herniated or a bulged disc, which will cause a lot of low back pain and neurological issues.
Identifying and Addressing Subluxations
So, how do we address that? One of the things we address in this whole component is called a subluxation. A subluxation is a misalignment in any of those parts.
And so what we do is we establish where those subluxations are at, how long they’ve been there, and whether we can fix them. And if it’s something that we can fix, we do that with chiropractic adjustments and specific spinal exercises.
Three Types of Chiropractic Adjustments
So here are three different types of adjustments that we can do to help somebody who has some lower back pain. If someone is having a disc issue that’s irritating a nerve, or even a joint dysfunction where the joint’s not moving properly, chiropractic adjustments are very vital to get that mechanism moving.
Manual Adjustment With a Drop Table
The very first type of adjustment that we do on most people is a manual adjustment where we’re palpating around and popping up a table—what we call a drop table—and applying pressure [unclear].
What the table does is help us with the adjustment so it’s not as forceful.
ArthroStim
The second thing we use is an ArthroStim. This is a spring-loaded device that helps adjust the spine, get the joint to move, and take the pressure off of the disc and nerve.
Activator
Another instrument or tool that we use is called an Activator. It’s a little bit less aggressive than the ArthroStim. It’s a spring-loaded device, and we can get more specific on exactly that bone and get it to move to decrease the dysfunction, take out the inflammation, and decrease the pain of your low back.
So those are three chiropractic adjustments that we can do to correct your low back pain.
