From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
You and Your Back Pain - Part 3
By Dr. Brian G. Blower, DC
Aug 4, 2010 - 8:45:53 AM
At a cocktail party the other
evening I had a conversation with an apparently healthy, aesthetic and
mature-in-years man who’s job it was to run a local dive experience.
This is a daily tourist-oriented adventure out onto the reefs here around
our island. As the chat got going it became apparent that his
experiences with people was extensive and he quickly brought up the
subject of obesity in Americans.
He especially bemoaned the large
size and poor state of the health of so many of his country’s “tourists.”
Apparently their jumbo size demanded from him and his staff extra work
and considerations to get them outfitted and in and out of the boats
when on the reef. He then proceeded to tell the story of one woman
recently getting her hugely obese knee caught between the rungs of the
boat ladder and then complained that there should be a lift available,
or at least a ramp off of the stern, to allow her to enjoy the use of
the facilities like anyone else. And also, she complained that
she needed assistance because she has “chronic lower back pain!”
From my chat with him it
made me think of how we all get back pain at some time or another and
that conventional wisdom seems to look at most lower back pain as simply
local and mechanical in nature. Many think that obese people get
back pain from the extra weight burden on their muscles and bones.
Nothing could be more removed from the truth. Lower back pain
apparently begins rather early in life as a “back condition” not
a “back problem.” We create the problem in the lower back
after we mechanically overload an unhealthy or weakened area, then the
symptoms and often too the problem of sprain and damage to tissue locally
in the lower back area occurs. Now we have a “back problem.”
It is at this point, when we have damaged the local lower back parts,
that it becomes a two, three or multi-tiered problem of such complexity
that no “specialist” is quite well rounded in his education and
thinking to judiciously tease apart the convolutions of the original
cause of the situation. So with an eye of concern the physician
will zoom in on his area of “expertise” and try to solve the problem
of your lower back pain. Usually the initial focus will be on
the pain itself and the then again usual drugs and adjunctive “therapies”
will be prescribed in an attempt to still our concern and give a little
time for the acute stage of the local injury to quiet down. And
often it soon will quiet down and that will be enough to support many
physician’s erroneous assumption that he has indeed intervened and
created the grounds for achieving the healing.
Backs don’t heal like
that, and left unattended they always have residual compromise at the
site of injury. And what about the big idea of health? What
about thinking and correcting the “cause” of the original back failure,
not the pain? For something to be healthy all of the parts have
to “work” all of the time. Obviously when we mechanically
loaded the lower back on attempting to do some work it couldn’t do
it, then it’s parts strained. If we were in a very compromised
condition at the time and the lower back muscles weren’t able to pull
and hold the boney structures in synchrony, then when we loaded this
unhealthy back to the point of sprain, the parts broke and created local
complications. These new injuries which have created back paining parts
are the result of and the aftermath of the original poorly working back
condition.
I manually muscle test bodies
including their lower backs every day and have for nearly forty years.
While lying on your back we test the left and then the right side of
the lower trunk muscles, we test flexors and extensors in many of their
needed positions. We test front sides and back sides as well as
the oblique muscles. Comparison of the function of the two sides
should show both to be strong and equal in a healthy body. Well
my friends, all of us fail to pass manual muscle tests which reveal
strengths and weaknesses with the lower back muscular components even
when asymptomatic. All of us fail to be perfectly functioning
in our back muscles even if we don’t have any back pain yet.
None of us are truly “healthy.” The breaking of our lower
back part is always the result of a preceding original unhealthy nerve
and muscle response by our potentially perfect body. The breaking
and injury of our lower back part is not originally the source of the
problem but is the reflection of the real causative problem which is
usually dwelling quite far away in its anatomical position within our
body.
It’s time to get our thinking
straight about what our bodies are and how they got here. Think like
this with me now for this is how things seem to occur within us that
preclude and then necessitate the faulting of the holding structures
of the lower back. The early faulting of our muscles lead to straining,
spraining, pain and disabilities. I continually find these “goings
on” in our failing-to-thrive bodies I examine and all the faults must
be corrected and eliminated in a very precise order to quickly take
the stress off of the injured lower back structures allowing them to
recover best. But before we become experts and share the
new findings of the cause of our muscles failure to do work and subsequently
our getting lower back pain, first let me tell you a much needed informative
little story.
Remember the Romans?
History records that the might of the Roman armies was such that upon
conquering a country they took the citizens and lined them up along
the land where they wished to build their great Roman roads. And
indeed they successfully did build the great roads that still stand
and are well used to-day. During that time of forced conditions
in order to get the road built the conquered citizens stood side by
side and were made to carry and pass from one to another the stones,
bricks and mortars that were essential in building the road. If
one of the citizens refused to pass the materials construction would
falter. In order to continually keep the road open and the work
under way any citizen that chose to interfere by not contributing was
severely beaten. If that same or any other citizen attempted to
quit and run for his freedom he was beaten to death as an example to
the others. While building the main road for the swift passage
of soldiers and goods the Romans further forged local roads into the
towns and villages nearby to get to the granaries and farms to take
the food and other ongoing necessities to keep the army constantly supplied.
It was very important to the
Romans that everyone contributed in the successful building of the road
on time. It was especially important to be timely to those in
charge of its construction, for they in turn would have to answer to
Caesar if they failed. Now think like this with me, those Roman
roads and their procedures of movement and design are modeled after
your human body and its needs to function too. Indeed we and our
body also have a Caesar to answer to and that is gravity.
How does it work? Straight
through the middle of our body is our Roman road that we name the central
nervous system (CNS), and it runs from the brain stem (see Part two of
You and Your Lower Back Pain) down the entire length of the spine.
We also have spur roads that help us reach the granaries of our Garden
of Eden and those are the nerves stretching from the spine and brain stem
to the hands and the feet. So important is our main soft nerve road,
the CNS and its essential continual movement of signals through it that
it is lined with citizens that house and protect it, their job is to
make sure it is unmolested. We call these citizens “spinal vertebrae”
and if any one of them crowds or embarrasses the CNS roadway which is
contained within their centers, then the nerve signals at that level
onward stop what they were doing and change their current carrying conditions.
Resistance, like from subluxation, anywhere along the course of the
pathway of any nerve’s signal is intolerable by us. When nerves
are resisted we give in and adapt in stress. Without the completeness
of the potential communication along the CNS road which hard wires the
brain to and from every part of us, then our might diminishes.
The higher up on the neck spine and closer to the skull the boney misalignment
or subluxation occurs the more it embarrasses the brain stem within.
The more subluxated and compromised the upper regions of the neck become
the greater the loss of strength of the muscles distally around the
trunk and lower back, including the legs.
Our CNS road is not rigid like
that of the Romans and the vertebrae have to be able to continually
freely move in a segmental, snake like manner while at the same time
protecting but not encroaching upon their fragile CNS content.
And to still push the efficiency of the brain and nervous systems further
we also choose to work our muscles to adopt an ongoing automatic economical
energy reducing upright posture with which to function, thereby directly
challenging gravity, our Caesar.
Since we are what we are and
evolved to be a constant coordinated whole being of many parts we do
well if left alone, if undisturbed. For short bursts of time while
here on earth provided we have learned our lessons of thriving well
during our infancy and youth, then we have a chance for a moment or
two among the stars. Vigor, vitality and virility ensue for those
that thrive and we get to reproduce our offspring. We get to live
again through our children. To ensure the continuation of the
legacy through having children all we have to do is provide health from
nutritional foods only and ensure a non-stressed internal environment
that then nurtures us by being able to keep our body in condition to
thrive.
Taking for granted that we
are within the perfect form and functioning body isn’t truly “what
we are” for most of us. Our obese woman’s body that got her
knee stuck in the ladder is an example of run away human negligence.
Her Roman road must be encroached upon and in ill repair, the resurrection
of her potential to regain health, that of “all of the parts working
all of the time” is unrealistic at best. Her fat cells constantly
secrete inflammatory cytokines which not only swell joints but also
interfere with nerves and reduce brain functions. Without guidance
and support she likely doesn’t have the capacity to clearly think
her way out of illness. Her lower back pain is an example of continual
inability to “do work” with her parts, especially those of the large
trunk muscles. The ongoing challenges of attempting movement and
upright posture stress and subluxate the human frame more easily in
one that cannot get to a thriving condition. Thriving is a condition
of both an excellent ongoing supply of nutriments and not ever abusing
the tissues throughout the internal body.
Next week Part Four of You
and Your Lower Back Pain
Read Part 1 HERE
Read Part 2 HERE
About the author:
Dr. Brian Blower has been a licensed chiropractor for 35 years
practicing Applied Kinesiology and has been in private practice on
Grand Bahama Island for the past
10 years. He is a founding member of Applied Kinesiology Canada and was
educated at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. He has treated
many celebrities and also specializes in sports medicine. Dr Blower is
currently in practice at the
Family Wellness
Center across from the Rand Hospital, Freeport. He can be reached at 242-351-5424 or 727-2454.
You
can also find Dr. Blower on Facebook HERE
Feel free to contact Dr. Blower with any of your questions or comments at BodyByBlower@yahoo.com
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