Osteopathic medicine, osteopathy, wellness, family wellbeing, D.O., herbal pharmacy, pharmacy, women’s health, holistic prevention medicine, preventive medicine, diet, OMM, osteopathic manipulation, natural therapies Article Body: Everybody encounters back pain at some stage throughout their lives. In reality, the top three problems people bring to the doctor’s office are in the top three.
In most cases swelling of the soft tissue, muscle spasms, or degenerative arthritis occurs. These react well to preservative therapies such as anti-inflammatory drugs, stretches and coercive osteopathic therapies. There are also beneficial physical modalities such as heat or cold, massage, and acupuncture.
And when is it that you will worry? Any loss of function of the bowel or of the bladder requires urgent attention. Surgery may relieve the nerve pressure, and typically restores full operation.
The longer the bladder or bowel failure occurs unchecked, the greater the chance of permanent damage. That also involves some muscle weakness in the legs or feet. Plus you can may falls and fracture risks.
Contrary to common opinion, an in-depth history, neurological and structural tests plus simple spine X-rays will diagnose the problem 80-90 percent of the time. Costly complex MRI tests may be useful to look at the cross-sections of the spine into the nerves and the spinal cord. But, in most situations, the subsequent conservative diagnosis does not change anyway.
If surgery is possible, consider taking an MRI. Certainly if your symptoms don’t change for many weeks, or the pain gets worse.
In addition to the common causes of low back pain from muscle spasms, degenerative disks and osteoarthritis, chronic systemic imbalances play a key role. Wearing and tearing the spine from old trauma, sports, and obesity causes the disks to lose their cushioning ability. They may also bulge or protrude backwards.
Over 50 years of age almost everyone has changed I disks losing height and getting some bone spurs. Not everyone, however, has pain. Again, unless the nerve root is squeezed out of the spinal cord or the spinal cord itself, surgery will not help. Even radiant leg pain called sciatica along with numbness and tingling in the legs can go away over time with proper treatment, including osteopathic manipulation therapy.
Studies show that back pain sufferers who have surgery have no better pain relief or function than those who have not had surgery after five years. Certainly, if surgery is recommended, it is wise to have a second opinion.
