Strain to one or more muscles of the lower back, usually following repetitive, traumatic, or postural loads.

Chiropractors are able to use soft tissue therapies, and exercises like posture modification, mobility, and strengthening to help with these types of injuries.

A sprain to the ligaments or joint capsules of the low back. This is usually present after trauma such as a car accident, or sporting injury.

Treatment often involves hands on therapy in addition to exercise therapy to help support ligaments through the healing process.

Injury or irritation to the joints in the low back. This is a very common type of acute and chronic low back pain, and can be caused by either postural, repetitive, or traumatic loads. Often this type of pain is felt close to the midline of the spine, and can radiate into the hips or upper legs as a deep and achy pain.

Chiropractors frequently treat this type of back pain by using joint-specific therapies like manipulation, and mobilization. This type of back pain also responds well to certain exercise therapies like posture modification, mobility, strengthening, and muscle control exercises.

Irritation or injury to the upper pelvic joint, located on each side of the lower lumbar spine where it meets the pelvis. Often described as “lower low back pain”. This pain can be very intense and often comes and goes with specific positional or movement loads. Irritation of this joint often has to do with either too much or too little muscular support around the pelvic joints. It is common to have SI joint pain during or after pregnancy.

In the case of too much muscular support, the joints may be compressed and treatment involves hands on therapies to the joint(s) and supporting muscles with mobility exercises.

When not enough muscular support is present, core, hip, and low back muscle control and strengthening exercises are often needed to help stabilize the joint(s).

Disc injuries include disc bulges, and herniations. Although disc-related injuries can be more difficult to treat and have a longer recovery time, they still respond well to treatment in the majority of cases.

Treatment of disc issues often requires disc-specific assessment and exercise therapy for best results. This usually involves the use of directional preference, neurodynamic, posture, muscle control, and lumbar strengthening exercises as the main components of treatment. In disc injuries, hands on therapy usually only plays a supportive role.

Sciatica involves sharp, burning, or stabbing pain that radiates into the leg, usually below the knee. It is often associated with numbness and tingling.

Sciatica is technically a symptom, not a diagnosis, so although the leg pain is often the worst part, treatment works best when it identifies the source of sciatic nerve irritation. This is most often in the low back, followed by the hip.

Spinal stenosis involves pain in the low back and leg due to the spinal canals that our nerves run through decreasing in size as we age. Chiropractors are able to help with lateral spinal stenosis where one or more nerve roots on the side of the spine are compressed. This usually involves specific nerve-relieving exercises to offload sensitized nerve roots, posture modification to reduce nerve compression, and core and low back strengthening to better support the spine.

Osteoarthritis of the spine is more common as we age, and overlaps with other issues as it effects our joints and disc space. Treatment often involves manual therapy for relief, and an exercise plan to reduce progression and provide muscular support the arthritic joints.