BACK PAIN

The patient with this problem comes in with severely acute pain in the mid-back area and very often the pain is so severe that it radiates out to the front, to the sternum, to the breast bone area. It can pierce through like a knife going through from the back to the front and it can be extremely distressing and alarming. The pain is so severe that the patient feels like something is horribly wrong and indeed, this patient is in so much pain that this is not a good situation. Thankfully there are ordinarily solutions for this problem and when we are able to determine that the cause is anterior or Thoracic vertebrae, we are able to offer great hope for relief. This is a condition where there has been a “buckling” of the mid-back, or the mid-thoracic spine, where the vertebra and ribs have buckled forward, the vertebra especially. The ribs are often “left behind” and “separate” from their usual abutment or smooth connection to the vertebrae.

This condition commonly affects people who work with arms overhead, such as a hairstylist, mechanics, certain housekeeping chores may bring this on, typists, therapists, construction workers. I have probably seen it most often and most severe amongst weight lifters who are doing bench pressing. When they are pressing heavy weight with their arms and shoulders, the spine buckles behind them, buckling the mid-back area forward. This buckling the spine causes the vertebrae to displace and when they do, they lose their juxtaposition, or natural positional relationship with the ribs that should be smoothly attached to the sides of the vertebra. These ribs that are attached to the vertebra are highly innervated because the rib cage protects our vital organs. By the primitive wisdom of the body, we have “alarm systems” that go off when something affects that area and so these rib heads, where they attach to the vertebra in the mid back, are very sensitive, and when they are displaced or pushed out of place, they will give off a tremendous amount of pain. The good note about this is that although the pain is quite debilitating and alarming, when properly treated, there is usually predictable relief by an effective chiropractic approach releasing that vertebra in just the right direction. This can be done in a pain-free manner greatly relieving the condition when performed by a chiropractor skilled in the appropriate method.

I would like to talk a little bit about some of the complications on these cases. Often mechanical issues will bring them on. Of course, it can come about suddenly from the impact of a rear-end car accident or some other trauma like that. It could be brought on by an assault, or a wrestling match, or when somebody has buckled back in surfing or in ways where somebody is thrown backwards and buckles their spine back, and may cause this problem to erupt. Sometimes these are known as “hyperextension injuries” to the thoracic spine.

There is a whole other area of concern sometimes in these cases. Actually the condition can be brought on and/or perpetuated by problems involving digestion, involving tension in and about the diaphragm, involving stress handling issues that settle in at the upper digestive region of the body and the diaphragm that anchors into and is innervated from the mid thoracic spine. In fact, it is considered quite classic for stomach problems, ulcers and other types of stomach distresses to be the direct cause of such flooding of nerve impulses into the mid-back area at specific vertebrae. Such as to “suck them forward” and pull them anterior or forward out of place, and this has to do with the abnormal nerve activity from the irritated stomach or upper digestive organs blasting through to the spine to relay up to the brain to tell the brain what is going on. In patients who have this type of tension or digestive distress, cramping of the diaphragm, tightening of the diaphragm, stress related or related digestive distress, reflux disorder that is uncontrolled – all of this can flood nerve impulses into that mid-back area. If these digestive conditions are not worked with and controlled, then the mid-thoracic area, which may well be greatly relieved by getting treatment, will constantly be recurring. So the need to do something effective about the causation of the problem cannot be underscored enough.