Low Back Pain

It is said that 4 out of 5 people will have some form of acute lower back pain by the time they are 40. For some this pain lasts days or weeks while others spend many years looking for relief. When people are asked what caused their pain, oftentimes it is either an acute injury or seemingly came out of nowhere. In both cases, it boils down to a weakness in the involved area prior to the injury. 

There are many reasons for why the muscles, ligaments, and tendons could be in a weakened state and allow for the pain, discomfort, or injury to what we would call the lower back. Luckily, all we have to do is get those same muscles to function properly. To do that, we need to understand the underlying cause for why they are weakened or suppressed in the first place. Finding the cause isn’t always fast and easy but it is simple once you realize the cause stems from thoughts, traumas, or toxins. 

Another way to think of thoughts, traumas, and toxins is Emotional, Structural, or Chemical causes. For something like lower back pain, we often just assume that it hurts because something structural is wrong with it. In all cases that is true, but rarely is it the primary cause for your pain.

So let’s talk about Structural causes! When we think about the body there are tons of different bits of structure that form the whole. These include but are not limited to; muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons, nerves, cartilage, organs, blood vessels, fascia, and skin. Any of these could be the part that is acting up and causing pain. That sure narrows it down! Luckily each part makes up the whole, and it just so happens that your body was designed in such a way that it works with all of these parts to find the path to health! 

Few of us injure our low backs with blunt force trauma whereas the greater portion of us seem to acquire the pain by bending over to get a pencil or “just sleeping wrong”. When you actually stop to think about it, no one should hurt themselves from picking up a pencil. If you do, its not that one pencil, but rather the thousand pencils you picked up before. This one is just “the straw that broke the camel's back.” 

It is very possible that the last straw broke your back because of a primary structural cause. If you have been to a chiropractor before, then you have heard of the term subluxation. It is simply when one bone in your spine is misaligned causing pressure on your spinal nerves thus limiting their power or threshold. This does often cause weakness or pain. So we go to the chiropractor and get our low back adjusted and everything feels fine for a while until it doesn’t. When you try something multiple times without success in this case it doesn’t mean you are insane, but it does mean that there may be an even deeper underlying cause of your low back pain, thus making that subluxation just a piece of your puzzle.

Next comes the Chemical causes or the toxin piece! 

Now that we know all of the parts of the body work together and do not act independently of each other, it should be easy to understand that dysfunction in one area can affect another part of your body. For instance, every organ in your body has different muscles that it can affect and vice versa. Often, people with digestive problems also have back pain, and that is because the large and small intestine are directly related to the muscles of your thighs, butt, and abdomen.

So how can a chemical problem cause low back pain? Well since we know the connection of organs to muscles, then it makes sense that if an organ is stressed then so is the group of muscles that it is linked with. Heavy metals, bacteria, parasites, fungus, and viruses are all things that can suppress the function of a specific organ or multiple organs. If your left kidney is having trouble getting rid of a bacteria then it is likely that your left psoas muscle (connects to every lumbar vertebra and disc) won’t be functioning properly thereby causing an uneven pull on your low back. That bacteria causing the consistent uneven pull could be the reason for the back pain. Now that we have a reason for the pain, we get to look into the reason for why the kidney can’t handle this bacteria. The kidney can normally get rid of something like this easily and does it regularly, so why can’t it now?

This is where the third piece of the puzzle comes into play- Emotions. 

This is the piece that many patients deem “the missing link to their health care”. Emotions aren’t just in our head. When we feel an emotion, our whole being feels it and if it doesn’t get properly expressed, it gets repressed into our organs allowing all kinds of dis-ease and dysfunction. With these repressed emotions, our organs get suppressed and now they can no longer perform their regular functions at full capacity. This allows for the bacteria to be a problem, thus throwing out your low back. We can help clear these emotions and the dis-ease/dysfunction it may be causing through an amazing technique called NET (Neuro Emotional Technique).

It is rarely the case where it is just one or the other. We are complex beings and because of that, so are our problems. Not all our names are Shrek, but we do all have layers. In treating this type of problem it’s all about giving the body the treatment it needs when it needs it. Your body is incredibly smart and knows exactly how it got the state that is in today. We only need to access that information. 

Here at Vibrant Health Center, we believe that the body is designed and capable of healing itself. With Applied Kinesiology and muscle testing we utilize a priority system that allows your body to communicate what its needs are in the proper timing at which it can best heal. This priority system allows us to find Emotional, Chemical, and Structural roadblocks that, when clear, the body will be able to better achieve what it was designed to do.

By Dr. Chance Johnson