Did
you know that one in six Australians endure the physical and mental impact of
chronic back pain every day? This week marks Spinal Health Week, an initiative
of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia and the 2017 campaign slogan is:
Chronic Back Pain? Help is at Hand. Well, the team at North Shore Family
Chiropractors are certainly here with helping hands. If you are unsure of
whether you have chronic pain or not, it is defined as a health condition that
lasts for three months or longer. So why do some 3.7 million Australians
struggle with this agonising national health issue day after day without help
or relief?
“While
I don’t think there’s any consensus on what the main causes of chronic back
pain are, I do believe the following three issues can lead to people suffering
pain much longer than they should,” says Dr Darren:
A lack of diagnosis or misdiagnosis
Rather than seeking accurate diagnosis and
support from professionals trained to help with spinal issues (think
chiropractors, osteopaths and physiotherapists), people instead visit their GP
and are typically prescribed strong pain medications without any particular
diagnosis of what the cause might actually be. This bandaid effect also crops
up when people self-medicate and take pain medication without seeing a doctor,
let alone an expert practitioner. If you’re suffering ongoing back pain, go and
see a chiropractor sooner rather than later who can help relieve your back pain
without the use of surgery or drugs!
Chronic lifestyle problems: We are all guilty of bad lifestyle
habits that are repeated over a long period of time and rarely change, if ever,
but Dr Darren says that some bad habits can really impact your back’s health.
“Sitting in front of computers, iPhones and iPads without proper support and
without taking regular breaks can really impact your spine,” says Dr Darren.
“The body — and the spine — need exercise and movement to stay healthy and
sitting for extended periods does a lot of damage over time.” He adds that
significant weight gain as the body ages is another factor that increasingly
impacts the body and therefore spine health. The message here is to take
regular breaks, get active, and keep on moving…
Congenital
or genetic factors: Dr Darren says that congenital or genetic factors occur
when people aren’t born with a healthy spine, or they simply don’t develop a
healthy spine throughout their childhood. For example, a parent may have
scoliosis (abnormal curvature of the spine), meaning there’s a much higher
likelihood that their child will also have scoliosis. Congenital and genetic
factors are a particular area of expertise for Dr Darren, so give the practice
a call on 9419 3144 if you suspect you or your child might have inherited back
problems — these are manageable and treatable in the right hands.
So why
do so many of us put up with chronic back pain?
“There’s
a mindset that back pain will just go away on its own… eventually…” explains Dr
Darren. “Unfortunately — and I don’t mean to be controversial — but it’s very
common for medical doctors to say ‘just take these pills and see me again in a
couple of weeks’… However, statistics show that this approach simply doesn’t
work and more often than not results in chronic and constant back pain that
could have been alleviated, if not healed, if the patient had seen a chiropractor
in the first place.”
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