Tips to Alleviate Your Pain and Improve Your Spine Health

Understanding the Root Causes of Back Pain

The first step to saying goodbye to back pain is understanding the potential causes. It might be due to a sedentary lifestyle, an old injury, or even just daily wear and tear. No matter the reason, understanding the root causes is your key to finding the solution.

The most common causes of back pain that our physical therapists frequently treat include the following:

• Muscle Strain or Ligament Sprain: Repeated heavy lifting or sudden awkward movements can injure the muscles and spinal ligaments. 
• Bulging or Ruptured Discs: Discs, the cushioning between your bones, can bulge or herniate and press on a nerve. 
• Degenerative Disc Disease: As we age, the discs between the vertebrae deteriorate, which can cause pain, especially if one disc is worn down significantly. 
• Spinal Stenosis: This condition results from the narrowing of the spinal canal, putting pressure on the nerves and causing back pain.

Through a detailed evaluation, our McKenzie Certified physical therapist will classify your symptoms into one of three mechanical syndromes:

• Postural Syndrome: Pain caused by prolonged positions or postures.
• Dysfunction Syndrome: Pain associated with restrictions limiting movement, such as scar tissue, fibrosis, or nerve root adhesions.
• Derangement Syndrome: This is the most common classification and involves obstruction to movement in the spinal joints that results in pain and dysfunction.

Our mechanical diagnostic evaluation will help to identify the exact cause of your back pain and provide us with the appropriate treatments to ensure you get the results you deserve!

Simple Yet Effective Strategies: Your Road to a Healthy Spine Tailored Treatment Plans

At the beginning of your journey, you’ll meet with one of our McKenzie Certified physical therapists. They’ll chat with you, learn about your pain, its onset, nature, and behavior, and do a thorough physical examination to determine what’s causing your back troubles. 

Your therapist will observe your response to repeated movements and sustained positions of the spine. This includes movement of the spine in specific directions to identify which movements exacerbate or alleviate your pain.

Once they’ve gathered all the clues, they craft a personalized treatment plan just for you! This isn’t a one-size-fits-all deal; as treatment is based on your evaluation findings, helping you bounce back quicker and stronger, and includes the following: 

• Self-Treatment: At the core of the McKenzie Method is empowering the patient with self-treatment techniques. These exercises are based on your unique assessment findings.
• Specific Exercises: We’ll teach you exercises to improve posture, stretch shortened tissues and/or specific exercises designed to ‘centralize’ pain based on your directional preference (i.e., movements that alleviate your symptoms).
• Manual Therapy: In some cases, hands-on techniques by the therapist are used to complement the exercises.
• Progress Monitoring: Regular follow-up to assess the effectiveness of the treatment and modify as needed.

Remember, your McCabe and Brady Physical Therapy therapists are there with you at every step, answering your questions, and teaching you how to find relief and get lasting results.