Low Back Pain Treatment in Farragut & Loudon, TN

Comprehensive Consultation and Exam

Our consultation and exam are designed to find the root cause of your low back pain. Recognizing that masking the pain with medication is not a long-term solution, we will learn what really needs to be done to heal the damage. Whether we observe how you get in and out of a chair, how you walk, which muscles are dormant, how compressed nerves are, or how damaged your spinal discs are, we will get to the bottom of things.

We will ask questions to learn about your history and what may have impacted your lower back. Jobs, sports, fitness, accidents, and even nutrition all affect the state of your lower back. We need to learn these things about you in our consultation.

Digital X-rays

Our office has state-of-the-art digital X-rays right on site. This allows us to assess how much damage there might be, how that damage is affecting things like the discs and nerves, and what possible options are available to help you contend with the issues. X-rays can often be used when following up to determine the level of recovery a patient is making. Pain is only one indicator of spinal health. Objectively seeing and monitoring the spine with imaging is a way to know exactly how things are progressing.

The use of X-rays is not taken lightly in our office. We only take the minimum number of views needed to do our best work, and digital advancements minimize a patient’s radiation exposure.

Specific Chiropractic Care In Farragut & Loudon, TN

Imagine your jaw wasn’t completely broken or dislocated; however, it was misaligned enough to change the symmetrical way your teeth connect with every bite. A subluxation in your spine is just like that. The only thing that is worse with spinal subluxation is that it occurs very close to our nerves, which have an essential job to do. Subluxations in your lower back can come slowly over time due to a repetitive job or acutely due to an obvious issue like lifting wheel barrels full of dirt. Either way, the subluxation affects the bones, muscles, joints, ligaments, and nerves. These all work as a unit, so the whole “symphony” is out of tune when one is impacted.

Subluxations often exist below the radar before they “announce themselves publicly with pain.” The issues that can result from low back subluxations are:

• Pain
• Limited Mobility
• Disc Bulges
• Disc Herniations
• Sciatica
• Leg Pain
• Groin and Testicular Pain
• Hip pain
• Walking Difficulty
• Foot Drop
• Pelvic Organ Dysfunction

Chiropractic is the best choice for low back pain, as proven in several medical studies and published journal articles worldwide. Patient recovery and satisfaction levels with chiropractic are greater than those for massage, PT, exercise, acupuncture, and all pharmaceutical use. This is because chiropractic addresses low back pain at the root cause level, while others focus more on masking the pain.

Custom Therapeutic Exercise Plan

Since muscles, ligaments, joints, bones, and nerves are all intricately connected, the most successful long-term approaches to lower back pain must involve proper muscle activation. Most people are familiar with the phrase ‘core exercise,’ but that is often too vague and not specific enough for a person with damage in their lower back. A particular exercise that may help one person may be very detrimental to another.

Our custom exercise prescription approach will ensure we’re targeting the proper areas and that you won’t be doing anything to harm yourself. As much as we are fans of Google and YouTube, it is often too generic and not the best resource for lower back pain relief tips.

Spinal Decompression

Contrary to popular belief, most low back pain is a result of an unstable joint. The lower back is functionally a stabilizing part of the body and not as much for large global motions like the hip or shoulder. Decompression may have a role in unique low back cases; however, it may take ligaments needing stability and create further laxity. If spinal decompression is the right approach for you, we will recommend the most reputable places in the area for you to seek this type of care.

Herniated Lumbar Discs

A herniated disc is a more pronounced type of disc damage in which the inner jelly actually breaks through the weakened and damaged outer fibrous wall. This herniation may touch on a nerve and the pain can be severe.

Degenerative Disc Disease

Picture a brand new grape picked off the vine. This is analogous to a healthy disc. Now, picture the grape slowly dehydrating and becoming like a raisin. This is what happens in degenerative disc disease.

Properly addressing an injured or damaged disc and fostering a recovery always involves dealing with the following:

• The load on the disc (alignment)
• The movement of the disc
• The stability of the ligaments and muscles around the disc

A comprehensive look at the lower back allows us to get great results with pain relief.

Spinal Stenosis

Spinal stenosis occurs when the amount of space in your spinal column diminishes, and the spinal cord experiences increased pressure. Stenosis can have many different causes. It can come from excessive calcification, bone spurring, subluxation, and direct disc pressure. People often experience continual pain when walking, described as a chronic toothache, and may find relief when they bear some of their body weight on a walker or shopping cart. Spinal stenosis is conservatively managed very well with chiropractic adjustments and exercise protocols for stenosis.

Muscle Strain

Low back muscle strains are a common weekend warrior injury – too much gardening, helping a friend lift something heavy, or even tweaking something at the gym. Muscle strains often feel relatively pain-free at rest but hurt when moving. A compilation of strained low back muscles is the compensated alignment pattern that will usually slow the recovery. Nerve pressure may also result from the compensated alignment. Chiropractic adjustments help facilitate a much faster recovery, and heat or ice will often also be a suggested part of the healing process.

Facet Joint Dysfunction

Facet joints are the joints in your lower back that prevent hyperextension (arching) and create some guidance in the rotation movements. These joints often get damaged in people who do a lot of arching in their lower backs, such as gymnasts and people with weak or damaged abdominal muscles. Chiropractic adjustments are excellent at realigning the facets. We also recommend abdominal and gluteal strengthening to stabilize the facets for long-term success.

Subluxation

A subluxation occurs when the spinal bones misalign and irritate the surrounding nerve system. It can usually be present for quite some time, much like a cavity, without you feeling it. Subluxations are detrimental to the bones, joints, and nerves. Chiropractors are the most highly trained and equipped doctors on the planet to deal with subluxations in the spine.

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction (SI Joint Pain)

SI joints are critical as they are the joints that bear the load of your torso and legs coming together. These joints are close to small bony projections that you can feel beside your tailbone. These joints are easy to irritate and subluxate due to the number of movements that they participate in. Pain in this area could feel achy or sharp and will often refer to the buttocks area. Chiropractic adjustments to restore proper alignment and movement in these joints are one of the fastest and most effective ways to recover. Stability exercises go a long way to help stop this from becoming a chronic and recurring issue.