The answer, like the cause is – you guessed it – multifactorial. Since we can’t change our genetics, we’ll have to accept that one. But, we can change our BMI by keeping our weight to a reasonable amount. In an April 2010 study from Norway, 60,000 men and women provided BMI information and 20.9% of the men and 26.3% of the women indicated they had chronic low back pain. The authors found a direct relationship to a high BMI and an increased prevalence of LBP. Similar results attributing obesity to LBP were also reported in a meta-analysis published in January 2010 in the American Journal of Epidemiology (2010; 171(2):135-154).

So, what is, “…a reasonable amount of weight?” When using the BMI, a BMI of 18.5 to 25 is considered “normal,” while 25-30 is described as overweight and >30 represents obesity. We should also mention anything LESS than 18.5 is considered underweight and that’s not good either as many nutritional needs of the body are compromised and too little weight can negatively affect bone health leading to osteoporosis and a myriad of other problematic health issues.

You may be wondering what a body mass index or BMI is, as its quite important and is quickly gaining respect in the medical world. In fact, it has been suggested to include the BMI along with the other “vital signs” pairing it up with blood pressure (BP), pulse, breathing rate, height, weight, and temperature. The BMI is a formula of height and weight and it’s a rough calculation of our total body fat, which is related to the risk of disease and death. However, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) it’s a little more complicated than that as people with greater muscle mass (such as a body builder) will have a higher BMI, suggesting they are overweight. At the other end of the spectrum, older individuals who have lost muscle mass may be still be overweight but their BMI will not reflect that.

The NHLBI reports 3 factors of importance when defining obesity and its many negative health effects, including the increased prevalence of LBP. The 3 factors are: 1) The BMI; 2) The waist measurement; 3) The presence of other negative health factors including: high BP, high LDL-cholesterol, low HDL-cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood sugar, a family history of heart disease, physical inactivity and smoking cigarettes. If you have a waist size >35” for woman, >40” for men, AND 2 or more risk factors, simply put, you MUST lose weight! Even a small weight loss of 10% (such as 30# if you’re 300#), will help lower your risk of developing diseases associated with obesity such as heart disease, high cholesterol related diseases, stroke, certain types of cancers and type 2 diabetes.

We also realize you have a choice in who you choose for your healthcare services. If you, a friend or family member requires care for low back pain, we sincerely appreciate the trust and confidence shown by choosing our services and look forward in serving you and your family presently and, in the future.

YOU MAY BE A CANDIDATE FOR CARE FOR LOW BACK PAIN! FOR A FREE NO-OBLIGATION CONSULTATION CALL 648-7987.

Then, these farmers would sit on hard wooden church pews and their thick wallets would dig into their buttocks for an hour or so. This wallet pressure crushed their sciatica nerve, so that when they stood up they felt pain in their leg, tinging in their legs, burning and aching.

So, the farmers discovered that if they would just carry their wallet in their front pants or suit pocket, then there leg pain would go away!

So, first check your wallet and see if you can take out some papers in it and make sure it is not two to three inches thick!

Then, start carrying it in your front pants pocket or front shirt pocket today!

This may be your solution to your leg pain!

Back pain is no fun. It is also a MAJOR problem for our healthcare system and economy. Here are some important facts about back pain, according to the American Chiropractic Association (ACA):

•31 million Americans experience low-back pain at any given time.

•One-half of all working Americans admit to having back pain symptoms each year.

•Back pain is one of the most common reasons for missed work. In fact, back pain is the second most common reason for visits to the doctor’s office, outnumbered only by upper-respiratory infections.

•Americans spend at least $50 billion each year on back pain, and that’s just for the more easily identified costs.

•Experts estimate as much as 80% of the population will experience a back problem at some time in their lives.

•Most cases of back pain are mechanical or non-organic—meaning they are not caused by serious conditions such as inflammatory arthritis, infection, fracture or cancer.

There are two different types of mechanical stress that can cause back pain. First is a blatant injury. This can be anything from a car accident, sports injury or slip and fall. This cause of back pain is easy to understand. Trauma to your spine causes injury to the soft tissue (ligaments, muscles and disks).

This is why the first tip is to make your home, work area and car as “back safe” as possible. Home and work should be kept uncluttered so you do not slip and fall. This is especially important at night, when lighting may be dim. A seatbelt should always be worn while driving and your headrest should be checked and adjusted to your height to minimize damage from a crash. If you are in a car accident, you should be examined by a doctor trained to handle these types of injuries. Chiropractors are well-trained in the diagnosis and treatment of car accident injuries.

Back pain caused by the trauma of car accidents and falls is obvious. What’s not obvious is the other type of mechanical stress: MICRO-TRAUMA. Micro-trauma is a small amount of bad force applied to your back or spine. This small amount of bad force does not seem to be a big deal and usually does not cause pain or discomfort right away, but over time, micro-traumas add up and can cause major problems. An example of such a micro trauma is incorrect posture – either sitting, standing or sleeping. Either one of these three, over time, can ruin the structural integrity of your spine and cause major pain.

That’s why tip #2 is to make sure you have the proper bed and chair and always keep good posture. Also you should try not to stand, sit or lay in one position too long. Motion is important – when in doubt, change position!

Prevention of back pain is one of the most important things you can do in your life. Minimizing both big and small stresses on your spine is one important way to accomplish this goal.

If you need advice on any of this, we can help you. Please call us at 648-7987 and we would be glad to speak with you.

One of the biggest reasons is that we are 2-legged animals carrying 2/3rds of our weight above our waist. Studies have shown deterioration or arthritis occurs much sooner in us vs. our 4-legged animal counterparts. A 180 lbs man carries roughly 120 lbs above the waist. This means, every time he bends over, in order to stand upright, he needs to lift 120 lbs PLUS whatever he is lifting. Hence, the argument of, “…but I only bent over to lift a pencil and my back went out,” seems on the surface as impossible but in reality, the man in our example is lifting the pencil plus 120 lbs.

Now, let’s add to that the point that a 5 pound weight equals 50 pounds when held out in front with the arms stretched out straight. Now, if that’s not bad enough, now, let’s assume all of this is happening from a bent forward position, with a twist at the waist, with out stretched arms, while lifting a 20 pound object. Get the idea?

It’s amazing our back doesn’t get injured every day as we lift 2 bags of groceries into the far end of a car trunk, or, when lifting our 30 pound child in and out of a car seat, height chair, or when they are screaming and pushing away from us as we try to lift them!

In order to further appreciate why the low back is so vulnerable to injury, some basic understanding of anatomy is needed. When we’re born, the back is made up of 33 segments of which 5 fuse by the time we’re about 18 years old to make up the sacrum (bottom of the spine) and 4 fuse to make up the coccyx (tail bone), leaving 5 lumbar (low back), 12 thoracic (mid-back) and 7 cervical (neck) vertebra. These are stacked up on top of each other like building blocks and are connected to each other by a shock absorbing disk in the front and two smaller facet joints in the back, acting like a tripod.

In the low back, we’re supposed to bear about 80% of our weight in the front and 20% in the back but, if our abdominal muscles are a bit out of shape and the pelvis rotates forwards, the curve in the low back increases and overloads the back of the vertebra (facets) making them vulnerable to injury. The disk becomes injured when we bend/lift/twist. This can tear the outer tough fibers of the disk, allowing the central more liquid-like material to leak out. If this happens, the leaking or “herniated” disk can put pressure on the nerve that exits the spine and travels down our leg. If the pain pattern includes the back of the leg, it’s commonly referred to as “sciatica.”

OK, enough about anatomy. What can we do to reduce the chances of having periodic low back pain? Obviously, staying in shape is very important. Certain muscles of the body must be tight to keep us upright or standing. These muscles need to be stretched on a regular basis. For example: the hamstring muscle. We’ve all had to perform hurdler types of exercises and remember how tight they feel!

We realize that you have a choice in where you choose for your healthcare services. If you, a friend or family member requires care for low back pain, we sincerely appreciate the trust and confidence shown by choosing our services and look forward in serving you and your family presently and, in the future.

YOU MAY BE A CANDIDATE FOR NON-SURGICAL SPINAL DECOMPRESSION OR PRO-ADJUSTER NON-FORCE CHIROPRACTIC CARE FOR LOW BACK PAIN! FOR A FREE NO-OBLIGATION CONSULTATION CALL 648-7987

Core training is exercising the “core” of your body, which is your middle area…the stomach and back.

When you have a toned and strong stomach, you will not only look good, but it feels really good to be fit and strong in your back and stomach. A toned core will help your body age well and it sets you up for good posture and a pain-free lower back.

Now, having a slim stomach area takes more than exercise, and you probably know that it also takes cardiovascular exercise and a proper diet, but here are two killer moves you can do at home to strengthen your core muscles.

Exercise #1: The Plank

- Get into a push-up position with your forearms on the floor.

- Lift your legs and torso up off the ground so that only your toes and the flats of your forearms remain on the floor.

- Keeping your back neutral and your belly button pulled in (tightened), hold this position for 20-60 seconds.

- Repeat for 3-5 sets.

- Do this 3 to 5 times a week.

Exercise #2: Butterfly Abs
- Sit comfortably on the floor with your legs crossed. Using your arms to support you, slowly lie back until your body is flat, keeping your legs crossed.

- Place your hands under the back of your neck for support. Inhale through your nose, and raise your chest a few inches off the floor while exhaling through your mouth. Your chest should be moving up toward the ceiling, not bending forward to your knees. This should be a smooth, controlled motion.

- Repeat 25 times, and as you progress, move up to 50 times.

- Tip: Do not push your head with your hands as this puts you at risk of injuring your neck. The purpose of your hands is to keep your head in alignment with your back and shoulders. You don’t want to curve your back.

- Do this 3 to 5 times a week.

Send me an email if you have any questions or comments about these exercises. I’d love to hear how they are going for you if you try them!

Dr. Steve Alff, D.C.

Source: Real Beauty.com

The intervertebral disc is like a shock-absorber located between each vertebra in our spine extending from the tail bone to the upper neck. When healthy, your discs truly do function as shock absorbers. There are two parts to the disc – the inner part (called the nucleus) which is the liquid-like center and the outer part (the annulus), which is tough, laminated and rubber-like whose job is to hold the nucleus in the center of the disc. The annulus has concentric rings which look similar to the rings of an oak tree trunk and the strength of these laminated rings is due to the fibers crisscrossing, creating a self-sealing, secure border for the nucleus center. In spite of this great anatomical structure, our discs degenerate and can crack or tear allowing the more liquid-like nucleus to leak out of the annulus creating the classic “slipped disc” (technically referred to as a herniated or ruptured disc).

When the herniated disc presses into the nerve that goes down the leg, pain is felt along its course and can radiate all the way to the foot. There are five vertebrae and disks with a pair of nerves that go into each leg and depending which disc ruptures, pain will follow a different course down the leg, which is why we ask you if you feel the pain more in the back or in the front of the leg. When the disc tears prior to both disk herniation and leg pain, low back pain occurs because the nerve fibers that are normally only located in the outer third of the disc grow into the central portion of the disc, making it generate more pain.

So now for the important question, “…what can I do for it?” When you visit our office, we will ask you about how you injured your back. Often, the cause of a herniated disc can be the accumulation of multiple events over time. It certainly can happen after one major event, like our example of lifting a rock out of a hole, but that is usually the “straw that breaks the camel’s back” and not the sole cause. Many researchers have reported it is rare for a healthy disc to herniate. Rather, disc degeneration with tears already present sets up the situation where a bend plus a twist, “…finishes the job.”

The orthopedic and neurological examination we will perform will usually clearly identify the level of herniation. If it is determined by this examination that you have a disc herniation, you are in the right place…because we have the state-of-the-art DRX9000, true non-surgical spinal decompression. The DRX9000 is designed specifically to heal a bulging/herniated or, otherwise, damaged intervertebral disc. Many clients of our office have been spared a risky surgery or shots, or a lifetime of taking toxic medications by utilizing our decompression therapy.

We realize that you have a choice in where you choose for your healthcare services. If you, a friend or family member requires care for low back pain, we sincerely appreciate the trust and confidence shown by choosing our services and look forward in serving you and your family presently and, in the future.

I’m sure you know that drinking Coca Cola isn’t very good for you. In fact it provides absolutely no nutritional value.

So check this out. When someone drinks a Coke, watch what happens…

In the first 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because an ingredient called phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.

At 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)

40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
>60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
>60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
>60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

So there you have it, an avalanche of destruction in a single can. Imagine drinking this day after day, week after week. Or how about the people who drink 2 or 3 cans a day?

My suggestion: limit your soda intake and stick to water, real juice from fresh squeezed fruit, and iced tea without sweetener.

What’s more, stretching can help eliminate or decrease low back pain, one of the most common kinds of structural pain. If you have muscle tightness in the quadriceps, hamstrings, hip flexors, and low back muscles, then you could be suffering with low back pain. Stretching those muscles may eliminate the pain. Keep in mind that every joint is tied to another joint, so if one muscle is tight, it is going to affect another joint or muscle.

One of the greatest benefits of stretching is that you’re able to increase your range of motion, which means your joints can move further before an injury occurs. Its best to stretch after you exercise because by the time you’ve completed your workout, your muscles are “warm”. Post-exercise stretching also helps to reduce soreness, improves workout recovery, and ensures muscle and tendons are working properly.

There are three main types of stretching: static (corrective), active and functional. No matter what type you do, it will relieve muscle tightness, help with posture, prevent injury and improve the quality of everyday activites.

Just make sure to not do your stretching improperly: don’t overstretch (slight discomfort, but not painful). don’t stretch cold muscles (do at least 5 minutes of warm-up first), don’t bounce when stretching (hold your position for a specified time) and don’t stretch a muscle improperly (if you are not sure how to perform a stretch properly, ask for assistance from a profesional).

I also tell all my patients that I believe it is best that you stretch before retiring for the evening. It should be a lot easier to pop out of bed the next morning.

Take the first steps by stretching everyday and you will be a more flexible, healthier you!

1) Meade TW, Dyer S, Browne W, Townsend J, Frank AO. British Medical Journal 1990 (Jun 2); 300 (6737):1431-1437. http://www.chiro.org/LINKS/ABSTRACTS/LBP_of_Mechanical_Origin.shtml

2) Manga P, Angus DE, Papadopoulos C, Swan WR. A Study to Examine the Effectiveness and Cost-effectiveness of Chiropractic Management of Low-Back Pain. 8/1993; Ontario, Canada. http://www.chiro.org/LINKS/GUIDELINES/Manga_93.shtml

3) Bigos S, et. al., 1994, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=hstat6.chapter.25870

4) Meade TW, Dyer S, Browne W, Frank AO. Randomised Comparison of Chiropractic and Hospital Outpatient Management for Low Back Pain: Results from Extended Follow up. British Medical Journal 1995 (Aug 5); 311 (7001): 349–351 http://www.chiro.org/LINKS/ABSTRACTS/Chiropractic_and_Hospital_Outpatient.shtml

5) Luo X, Pietrobon R, Sun SX, Liu GG, Hey L. Estimates and Patterns of Direct Health Care Expenditures Among Individuals With Back Pain in the United States. Spine 2004 (Jan 1); 29 (1): 79–86. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14699281

At the Ventura Spinal Care Center, we use a computerized instrument to do the spinal adjusting and extremity adjusting….it is called the ProAdjuster. There is no twisting, cracking, or popping..it is extremly safe and comfortable. We can adjust all types of patients, even those who have had back surgery in the past. If you, a family member or a friend requires care, we sincerely appreciate the trust and confidence shown by choosing our services. We are proud that chiropractic care has consistently scored the highest level of satisfaction when compared to other forms of health care provision and look forward in serving you and your family presently and, in the future.

YOU MAY BE A CANDIDATE FOR CHIROPRACTIC CARE OR SPINAL DECOMPRESSION FOR LOW BACK PAIN! FOR A FREE NO-OBLIGATION CONSULTATION CALL 805-648-7987