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Lower Back Pain

"Lower back and sciatic pain are the leading cause for limiting daily activity."
-Dr Scott McEvoy, Chiropractor

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Table of Contents

What Is Lower Back Pain?

Lower back pain is your body’s protective mechanism, with different types of pain (such as dull, achy, sharp, or stabbing) in the lower back, mostly originating in the facet joints, intervertebral discs, and sacroiliac joint. Muscle, ligaments, and fascia problems can also cause lower back pain. Such pain can also be triggered by conditions such as arthritis, stenosis, spondylosis and more. Lower back pain can be acute (begins suddenly and is usually short and sharp) or chronic (persistent or recurrent pain lasting longer than three months).

Types Of Lower Back Pain or Sciatica

young man in blue shirt suffering back pain on the left side of back at pelvis height. The man is facing away from the camera

Facet Joint Syndrome

We’ve found that nearly one-third of individuals with persistent lumbar pain have Facet Syndrome.  Facet Syndrome is caused by an irritation of your back joints.  You will experience pain lateral to the centre of your spine.  Your pain can be acute or chronic.  Often the pain is described as dull and achy with intermittent sharp pain.  This kind of pain reduces when sitting or walking.

Woman holding centre of lower back. She is wearing a white shirt. Traction spine therapy for pain relief.

Disc Pathology

Disc pain typically affects 40% of patients with persistent lumbar pain.  It presents as pain in the centre of the lower back.  The intervertebral disc is the only structure in the centre of the lower back that can cause pain. This type of pain gets worse with sitting, and standing up from a sitting position often aggravates disc pain. Disc pain can affect the nerves, causing sciatica, which is often due to inflammation around a nerve due to disc pathology.

Young female wearing active wear. She is holding her side at her lower back on the left hand side. She is experiencing lower backpain

Sacroiliac Joint Pain

Sacroiliac pain is prevalent in 23% of individuals suffering lower back pain. This type of pain presents as pain on one side of the lower back.  It is often worse when walking.   The sacroiliac joint is the joint between your lumbar spine and pelvis.

A plastic anatomical model of the lumbar spine. Showing the vertebrae and a disc in between. Model from Burwood family Chiropractic original clinic.

Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

Lumbar spinal stenosis occurs when there is a narrowing of the space in the spinal canal causing pressure on the spinal cord or of the space in the spinal foramen causing pressure on the spinal nerves. This may be a result of bone spurring, disc bulging, ligament thickening, spinal instability, spinal tumours, among other things. Symptoms often include nerve pain (often described as radiating and burning), muscle weakness associated with a foot drop or loss of bowel and bladder control, numbness and tingling due to nerve compression and subsequent deterioration of nerve supply. 

Picture of a man holding his lower back in pain. Side image of person's leg with the sciatic nerve in red to depict pain. Massage and chiropractic is an effective treatments.

Sciatic Nerve Pain

Sciatic nerve pain, commonly called sciatica, is a broad term for nerve pain arising from any part of the sciatic nerve.  The sciatic nerve travels from the lower back down the leg to your foot, producing pain, numbness, burning sensation, or weakness symptoms.  Learn more about sciatica. 

How To Fix Lower Back Pain?

At Five Dock Osteopathic and Chiropractic, we treat both acute and chronic lower back pain. Our approach is to go to the root cause of the problem.

Acute Lower Back Pain Treatment

Many clinics won’t treat acute lower back pain at all, but we treat plenty of it. The key is to improve your mobility when you are in lots of pain. We do this by doing treatment both standing and lying down, as only lying down would aggravate your pain.

Chronic Lower Back Pain Treatment

Chronic lower back pain causes a change in your brain (alteration of the sensory processing of the brain leading to amplification of pain). About 20% of people affected by acute lower back pain develop chronic lower back pain. Five Dock Osteopathic and Chiropractic has found that the key to fixing chronic pain is to retrain your sensorimotor system so it no longer amplifies pain.

Lower Back Pain Treatment Methods

We have a number of special methods for treating all kinds of lower back pain:

  • In treating sciatica, we look at the “pain pathway” (where the pain travels down your leg). This gives us vital information as to which nerve is being affected, thus greatly improving treatment outcomes.
  • Lower back pain related to a sedentary lifestyle usually leads to deconditioning of your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints. The image your brain has of that part of your body goes from high definition to low definition, increasing your risk of injury. We’ve found that core strength and posture is critical here – we work on adding stability, which leads to postural control and reduces injury and damage.
  • Your Hip flexor muscles will tighten in response to back pain. This is an evolutionary muscle response intended to stop you from moving and thus limit further injury. But in treating your lower back pain we can use it to our advantage by focusing on these muscle sets.

What Makes Our Treatment Of Lower Back Pain Unique?

We have our own unique style of massage developed to complement our adjustments. We are experts at tracing the cause of lower back pain to its source. Our treatment includes the front of the body (hip flexors and quads) and back (glutes and lumbar spine muscles). This approach focuses on you as a whole person, not a region in isolation. This brings you short-term relief from pain and lasting improvements to your health and well-being. Our adjustments all use traction, making them smooth and gentle on your body.  Our adjustments all use traction, making them smooth and gentle on your body. We work with you to devise personalised functional exercises that you can use to strengthen your core and build your stability.

What kind of lower back pain do you have?

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Lower back pain is an area of expertise for chiropractors. However you can benefit in many other areas of your health as well.

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About

Five Dock Osteopathic & Chiropractic is located in Canada Bay, in Sydney’s Inner West. Servicing suburbs including Burwood, Croydon, Drummoyne, Five Dock, Haberfield, Concord, Abbotsford, Chiswick, Leichhardt, Wareemba, Russell Lea, Summer Hill, Strathfield.

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Wednesday, Friday                   7AM – 5PM

Saturday                                      7AM – 2PM

Sunday                                         Closed

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212 Great North Road, Five Dock, NSW 2046

Phone: 02 9712 1736

Fax      : 02 9712 1736

Email  : [email protected]

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