Category Archives: Lower Back

Why Adjust Your Back and Spine?

Hi. I’m Dr. Steve Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic in Petaluma, CA. A real commonly asked question is “Why do I need to get adjusted? My back doesn’t hurt” or “It might hurt a little bit, and then it goes away. It’s fine, it’s not a big deal.”

The answer to that question is this: Here we have a spine, Okay? This is the back of the spine and the front. These little nerves that come out at each level from the spine are basically sandwiched right behind the disk. There’s a disk at each level of the spine like a little shock absorber, and right in front of little joints in the spine that move to allow us to move around. The joints and the disk are on either side of these nerves. Now these nerves are really… These are the big nerves that basically run our whole body. In other words, each of these little nerves has over 10,000 nerve fibers to it. It’s like a fiber optic cable, but basically, some of those nerves are pain nerves, but only about 10%. So, things can be out of place in the spine putting pressure on these nerves and on the disk itself, which has nerves, and on the joints as well.

If the nerves, let’s say, are going to run the digestive system like the stomach or liver or pancreas, or if they’re going up to the heart and lungs, those are the nerves that are really important for our body, and it’s not anything that we’ll actually feel. In other words, there’s different types of nerves. Sensory nerves are ones where you can feel sensation like pain, and then there are autonomic nerves that go to run organs, which we don’t feel anything. It runs without us being aware of it. Though we really want to make sure that the body is structurally sound because we’re in gravity all the time. We’re taking all kinds of little traumas on a daily basis. Some big, some small, some repetitive like sitting at your desk for years. A lot of these misalignments called subluxations have been there before age 10. It’s the most common thing that we see because you think about how often toddlers and infants are falling and they’re trying just crazy things that they shouldn’t be, and we all did that as well. So, what happens is if these misalignments aren’t corrected, as you grow, they stay in part of the format there.

We can see the remnants of that. It’s like if you hit a little sapling tree with your car when you’re backing out of the driveway. As that tree grows, it’ll kinda grow with that crooked part in there unless it’s corrected, and these things can be corrected. It takes pressure off of the nerves. So, whether or not there’s actually pain there, it takes pressure off the nerve to allow it to do its job that it’s supposed to do properly, and also it takes pressure off of the disks and joints, so that you’re not running into premature arthritis and pain from that as you age. In short, getting adjusted is maintenance for your body’s structure. It’s like brushing your teeth. You don’t just brush your teeth when they hurt, do you? Well, same thing with chiropractic. Having a regular schedule of checkups of maintenance for the spine and body structure is one of the healthiest things that you can do for yourself. I’m Dr. Steve Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic, and this has been your health minute.

Why Does Pregnancy Hurt?

Hi, I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic. Why does pregnancy hurt so much? Pregnancy is commonly associated with lower back pain, mid-back pain. Part of it is due to the weight gain. As much as the weight gain plays a role, so does the shift in the weight. In other words, the center of gravity is shifting and that has a big impact on the spine and the structure of the body.

This is the back of the spine, this is the front, the tummy is here so the tummy grows as the child grows inside the womb, and it pulls the spine like this. What happens is that, the lower spine has a lot more stress on it. Also, the upper spine kind of stretches like this and has more stress on it, as well. So, that’s a big factor coupled with the weight gain. The third factor to consider is the effect of a hormone called relaxin. Relaxin relaxes ligaments, hence the name. What it’s designed to do is, relax the ligaments right here between the pubic bones to allow them to separate so that the child can pass through the birth canal.

The problem with that is that, relaxin has an effect systemically, so it will loosen ligaments in the elbow, the neck, the low back, all over the place. So things are getting out of place more easily. That, coupled with the weight gain and weight shift, really leads to, a lot of times, an uncomfortable experience in pregnancy. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way though. With chiropractic, we can gently, specifically, safely realign structure of the mom-to-be. In doing so, we actually realign the structure of where the baby is living inside here. This is the pelvic bowl, this is where the child is gestating or growing before birth, and it’s right on the other side of what we call the sacrum. This is the foundation or base of the spine and the two pelvic bones.

When these get out of alignment, it changes and distorts the pelvic bowl inside. So what can happen is that if that shifts around, the child can kinda turn in the womb, and this is a big cause for children turning in utero. So, we have specialized tables that allow the mom-to-be to lay on her stomach with kind of open piece there for her tummy so there’s nothing pressing on it. We also have pillow systems like this that allow for the mom-to-be to lay on her stomach. So, it should be really comfortable and specific. It’s totally safe and should allow for a more comfortable experience of pregnancy, but also birth and postpartum.

I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic, and this has been your Health Minute.

Lower Back Pain

Leave a reply

I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Chiropractic. Today, I want to talk with you about lower back pain in chiropractic. Specifically, how is chiropractic so effective at getting rid of low back pain?

Well let’s talk about the lower back for a second. This is the left hip here and the right hip. You can see bones in the low back called vertebrae. And there’s a disk separating each one. They act like shock absorbers and then we can see nerves coming out of the spine on either side at each level. So, when the spine gets crooked, it puts pressure on the nerves and the muscles will react by going into spasm to splint the area. So it creates a lot of pain in the low back.

A qualified chiropractor can relieve that pain by relieving stress on these nerves. So, with a gentle specific correction called an adjustment, we realign the spine, take pressure off the nerves, the muscles start to relax, and the low back pain goes away. So my advice to you is if you have any low back pain, see a qualified chiropractor today to get your spine checked.