You’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t had a bout of lower back pain.  Logically speaking, the low back is subject to a lot of stresses – it bears the majority of our weight and can be easily injured from a fall, an accident, or improper lifting.  There are many possible causes for lower back pain, but some are more common than others.  Some of the more common causes include:

• Sprains and strains – These account for the majority of lower back pain cases.  The difference is that strains affect muscles or tendons and strains affect ligaments.
• Disc degeneration – If normal motion is compromised for long enough, the discs do not receive the nutrition they need to stay healthy.  Discs provide shock absorption against the motions of the lower back.
• Sciatica – Pain that radiates along the sciatic nerve usually starts from the lower back.  This can cause shooting pain through the buttocks and down one leg if the sciatic nerve is pinched.

Regardless of the reason, it’s important to get to the cause of the pain if you’re seeking any form of lasting relief.  Treating the symptoms of lower back pain may be fine in the short term, but it’s likely to return if the root cause is never addressed.

Looking to the Neck for the Cause of Lower Back Pain

If you think of your spine like links of a chain, when one link twists and shifts out of alignment, it affects all of the links below it.  The same thing occurs in your spine.  When the atlas vertebrae, the uppermost one in the neck, shifts out of place, it causes a series of compensations down the rest of the spine.  These postural changes can cause uneven shoulders and hips, and can cause one leg to appear shorter than the other.  It makes sense, then, how an atlas misalignment can trickle down the spine and create pain and discomfort in the low back.

to schedule a consultation today.