Mechanical – Lower Back Pain Reason #1

Dr. Ben Boudreau: Mechanical. So mechanical, lower back pain. Mechanical lower back pain is back pain that arises from the joints and soft tissues due to faulty movement patterns, i.e., an area that doesn’t move well enough. Or maybe an area that’s compensating or moving too much for an area that’s not moving well enough. Often, it’ll come from the feet, or it can work its way down from the neck along the kinetic chain.

Dr. Clayton Roach: Right. So, it’s important to know that many cases presently don’t necessarily come from trauma like a car accident or a fall. But those can be faulty patterns that you wouldn’t even know about that are kind of hiding in there, kind of creeping up year after year, that something is not moving well and causes something else to compensate.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: Absolutely. And so, this can come from either, like Dr. Roach was saying, from physical stress. Right. So, this can be built up over time from working in a work environment that requires you to be seated for most of the day. Or maybe you’re a horseback rider, on a horse all day, and constantly getting irritation from the up and down. That’s physical stress. Mechanical, lower back pain can come from that. You can also have emotional stress. This can come from day-to-day activities, finances, needing to pick up your kids, driving too fast, and getting to and from work in the car. Emotional stressors.

Dr. Clayton Roach: People always tell me they feel like they’re wearing their shoulders as earrings, right? Because we get so tense and we’ve got to get to the next, you know, baseball team or whatever it is. So just that every day, mundane stress creeps up in our back and then creates a faulty pattern, you know, it’s kind of like a little detour that your spine takes and all of a sudden things are backing up somewhere else. Then, you’ve got an issue in your head.

Soft Tissue Injuries – Lower Back Pain Reason #2

Dr. Ben Boudreau: Second most common cause of lower back pain in the Canadian population is soft tissue injuries.

Dr. Clayton Roach: A good example of soft tissue injuries would be a car accident. Right. And you get that whiplash, and you get a neck disorder. Sports injuries, right? So, you see a little more traumatic stuff there, like falls, sprains, strains. One of the joints, specifically the S.I. joint, people call the hip. So, I always ask people; I’ll show you where your hip is. And they say, here, I said, no, the hip is over here. This is the S.I. joint. So that part of the body.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: Huge cause, huge mechanism of injury for lower back pain is, of course, the soft tissues and the pain that arises from that.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: The third most common cause of lower back pain is chronic issues. Chronic lower back pain.

Arthritis – Lower Back Pain Reason #3

Dr. Clayton Roach: Mr. Arthritis, right?

Dr. Ben Boudreau: Degenerative joint disease, degenerative disc disease, arthritis, osteoarthritis. These are all things that you have heard before, and they are commonly present in our practice. And often it’s well, too late.

Dr. Clayton Roach: Yeah. And the thing is, is that what we always tell people that we don’t know if any of these are automatically chiropractic cases. Still, the thing to do is to receive a chiropractic examination to determine within these categories if this is something that as a chiropractor, if there is a chiropractic cause, then there’s going to be a chiropractic solution. And many people do phenomenally well with all of this under chiropractic care if they’ve been assessed properly and started a conservative treatment plan with chiropractors.

So again, this has been fun. We’ll do these often, you know, and keep in touch with us. You can also get a hold of us, share it, do whatever you want with these videos, and get them all out there. Because a lot of people, as we said, 11 million people, I’m sure some in your circle of friends might need this information. Thank you so much.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: Thank you so much. I’m Dr. Ben Boudreau.

Dr. Clayton Roach: And I’m Dr. Clayton Roach. And see you next time.