Why See a Chiropractor for Lower Back Pain? 

A chiropractor for lower back pain is who you want to see if mild throbbing, annoying aching, sharp stabbing, or severe spasming are disrupting your days and nights — as they do for 31 million Americans every year. You want a treatment that’ll allow you to move like you used to — and that means minding your neuro-musculoskeletal health.
 
Your spine is quite a feat of engineering. It provides strength, support and flexibility to your upper body, which is why it’s so sensitive to pain and injury — and why decades of research show it responds exceptionally well to gentle, non-invasive chiropractic care. More and more Americans are seeking this proven alternative to medication and surgery, and it may help reduce our $50 billion annual back pain costs and lost productivity.

Can it help you to see a chiropractor for lower back pain?  

The CDC says yes.  The agency’s 2022 Clinical Practice Guidelines recommend spinal adjustments and therapeutic exercises for nonpharmacologic pain management, and encourages insurers and health systems to increase access to these evidence-based options.

But once you understand how your spine functions, what may cause it to dysfunction, and how chiropractic care has been proven to resolve pain, inflammation and misalignment, you’ll likely answer that question for yourself. 

How Your Spine Curvature Changes When You See a Chiropractor for Lower Back Pain 

Your spine’s 33 vertebrae are stacked into three normal curves

Your spine is your body’s neurological and structural support center. Its 33 vertebrae are stacked into three normal curves: cervical (neck), thoracic (upper back), and lumbar (lower back).  

When properly aligned, these curves follow an S-shaped pattern that enables flexibility, shock-absorption and weight distribution. Between each vertebrae lie rubbery cushions called intervertebral discs. Your ligaments hold your vertebrae together, stabilizing your spine, and protecting your discs.  

Once your vertebrae become misaligned, they can exaggerate your spine’s curvature, causing back pain, limited joint movement, and decreased range of motion. 

What Causes Lower Back Pain? 

Most episodes of low-back pain are clinically acute — they last up to 4 weeks and often resolve on their own. Low-back pain that lasts between 4 and 12 weeks is subacute. If it lasts three months or longer, it’s chronic and requires immediate attention.  

Seeing a chiropractor for lower back pain may help you discover which type of stress — either sudden, abrupt misalignment or repetitive strain — was applied to your joints to cause pain in the following ways: 

Poor posture

Poor posture — walking, standing, sitting and sleeping in positions that increase wear and tear on your joints and misalign natural spine curvature — can cause these conditions to develop: 

• Kyphosis or hunchback is a curvature abnormality caused by excessive forward upper back curvature that causes shoulder, neck, upper back pain and headaches. 
  
• Lordosis or swayback is a curvature abnormality caused by excessive inward lower back curvature which causes varying degrees of instability and low back pain. (It’s common amongst rock climbers or professions that need to look up for long periods of time.) 

Injury 

Often a sudden jerking motion or over-extension — during sports activity, repetitive movement or improper heavy lifting — causes back muscles, tendons or ligaments to stretch or even tear.   

Car accidents can violently damage joints and vertebrae while stretching ligaments, tendons, and muscles beyond their normal range. Left untreated, these injuries can cause debilitating chronic pain in the lower back, which can spread to other parts of the body. 

Disc herniation 

When the soft center of a spinal disc pushes through a crack in the tougher exterior casing it can irritate nearby nerves causing pain, numbness, or weakness in an arm or leg.  A herniated disc can lead to even more pain and neurological dysfunction in the future as inflammation builds up, pain increases, and muscles begin to spasm. 

Sciatica

Sciatica is the irritation of the sciatic nerve — the largest nerve in your body, which runs from your lower back down your hips, buttocks, legs and feet. Pain originates in the lower back or pelvis and can be caused by an injury, an awkward movement, or the wear and tear of repetitive use. 

Scoliosis

This spinal disorder is characterized by an abnormal sideways S-shaped or C-shaped curvature of the spine and is typically caused by uneven shoulders and/or hips. After a thorough exam and assessment of your general health and goals, your DC will prescribe a personalized care plan for resolving your specific scoliosis type and severity.  

Natural Aging 

As our bones become brittle with age, they’re no longer able to provide as much support as they once did. That’s why osteoporosis and arthritis are the leading causes of back pain in older patients.  when the creation of new bone doesn’t keep up with the loss of old bone

When the cartilage between the bones begins to thin out, bones can put pressure on nerves causing debilitating pain. 

When you see a chiropractor for lower back pain, they’ll investigate its root cause before creating a personalized care plan for rehabilitating your spine’s natural curvature.

What Can Your Chiropractor Do for Lower Back Pain?

The goal of each chiropractic treatment, therapy or lifestyle recommendation is to: 

• Reduce pain and discomfort 
• Decrease inflammation 
• Improve range of motion 
• Enhance flexibility 
• Increase muscle tone and strength 

A Doctor of Chiropractic will learn about your health history, pain patterns, lifestyle and goals before performing a thorough musculoskeletal exam (which may require an x-ray).  

After discussing their diagnosis with you, your DC will craft a customized care plan which combines chiropractic adjustments, in-clinic active therapies and at home exercises. 

What happens during an adjustment?  

Along with that coveted sensation of relief, your chiropractic adjustment may entail: 

• A gentle, low amplitude quick thrust delivered to the misaligned lower back vertebra (to release it so it can move naturally) 
• Joint cavitation — the release of pressure from a joint (which also releases oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide) to enable the spine to move as needed and relieve pain

An experienced DC will provide a personalized care plan that includes only the type and duration of adjustment protocols that your condition requires.

Has Science Validated Seeing a Chiropractor for Lower Back Pain?

Over the last 30 years, a wealth of studies and clinical trials have demonstrated both the short- and long-term effectiveness of chiropractic care for lower back pain, leading The American College of Physicians and The American Medical Association to recommend that adjustments and active therapies be prescribed as first-line therapy for chronic low-back pain. 

The Spine Health Journal has published dozens of global peer-reviewed evidence that spinal adjustments and active therapies can reduce both acute and chronic back pain while improving function and reducing pain recurrence. 

University Hospitals Journal reported that patients who see a chiropractor for low back pain are significantly less likely than patients who see other providers to get a Valium or Xanax prescription even a year after their first chiropractic visit. 

The benefits are clear and the science solid — there’s no longer any reason to wonder: Should I see a chiropractor for lower back pain? Instead, you should be asking how to find a reputable chiropractor that’s right for you.

What Does a Chiropractor Ask You to Do for Your Lower Back Pain? 

To reinforce the effect of your DC’s gentle realignment techniques and strengthen your muscles, your care team will demonstrate and supervise your condition-specific active therapies — floor work, wall therapy, pre-core stretcher therapy, traction exercise or wobble chair therapy. As your muscles strengthen and gain mobility, your active therapies will advance accordingly. 

Condition-specific active therapies help improve strength and mobility

You’re not in the clinic every day, yet your body needs joint-supporting movement every day, at-home therapies may be prescribed to maintain your strength, mobility and flexibility which keep pain and stiffness under control. 
 
How long your pain lasts and how much care you’ll need will depend on intensity of your pain, general health, activity intolerance and your goals. 

Across healthcare systems, low back pain treatment guidelines encourage prevention of chronicity — which requires patient exercise, activity modification, ergonomic modifications, and lifestyle changes.  

This is what it will take to maintain the effects of your pain-relieving adjustments and keep your spine curvature healthy so you can do more of what you love when you want to do it. 

Exercises to Help Manage Your Lower Back Pain

Staying active is critical for your musculoskeletal health. Help relieve tension and stiffness with gentle exercises, and remember to:

• Warm up or stretch before exercising or physical activities, such as gardening 
• Maintain proper posture 
• Wear comfortable, low-heeled shoes 
• Sleep on a medium firm mattress to prevent your spin 
• Lift heavy objects with your knees, keep them close to your body, and don’t twist 
• Don’t smoke — it restricts blood flow, depriving your spinal tissues of oxygen and nutrient  
• Make sure your workstation and car seat position are ergonomically correct 

You can also try doing these exercises once a day to strengthen your spine muscles and keep them as flexible as possible to prevent further misalignments and pain. 

Exercise #1: Child’s Pose Stretch

• Start in tabletop position on hands and knees 
• Extend your arms out in front of you, placing your palms flat on the floor 
• Lower your hips onto your heels; drop your head and chest downward 
• Extend your arms as far in front of you as you can for 30 seconds 
• Repeat 10 times morning and evening 
   

Exercise #2: Supine Stretch

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor 
• Extend your arms out to your sides in a “T” position while keeping your shoulders on the ground 
• Bend your right knee over your left inner thigh and hold for 30 seconds 
• Repeat on the other side 
  

Exercise #3: Knee-to-Chest Stretch

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet on the floor 
• Place your hands right below your kneecaps 
• Raise both knees and pull them tightly toward your chest 
• Rock your hips side to side and up and down, massaging your low back  
• Repeat as long and often as feels good  

Sometimes we put off doing what we know we need to do until we get a nudge from a trusted or unexpected source, like Robert Blaich, author of Your Inner Pharmacy: “People can see the premature wear and tear on their car’s tires that occurs if the wheels are misaligned, yet the same holds true for the human body if the spine is misaligned.” 

Ready to find a chiropractor for back pain that makes you feel comfortable and cared for? 

Check in with your nearest Chiro One doc at one of our welcoming open-plan clinics across the country. They’ll perform a thorough exam to investigate the root cause of your pain, then personalize your care plan — a combination of gentle chiropractic adjustments and active therapies to get you feeling better longer.  Find a Chiro One doctor near you.   

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