Tag Archives: lower back pain

Chiropractic Care | Whole Body Affects

Hi, I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is when a patient comes in with lower back pain or headaches or neck pain and they get rid of that symptom, but they also get huge improvement with other symptoms like digestive issues, reproductive issues, and things like that. And so they ask the question frequently, how can adjustment to my spine, make a difference in my acid reflux in my stomach or in my menstrual cycle or things like that. I want to show you here. We are wired in a really specific way, like a schematic for building or a house. When we look at the lower back for example, we rotate around, we can start to see these bones here are separated by disks at each level and we have these nerves that come out of holes right behind the disks at each level.

When things get out of place… Let’s say, the fifth lumbar, the last vertebra, in the spine gets out of place. It will put pressure on the nerves going down to the leg, to the muscles of the leg and sensation, and also reflexes in the legs. On the right side, we can also see that nerve flow is going down to the colon, bladder, and reproductive organs at that level. Those functions can be interrupted if there’s compression on the disk, which puts pressure on the nerve as well.

If we look a little more closely… So up in the neck, for example, if things get out of place say in the middle of the neck, we have nerve flow that goes down to the arms, the biceps and the wrist extensor muscles and… But we also have nerve flow that goes down to the heart and lungs at this level, which is something that you won’t feel, but I think we can agree its something very crucial. This is why restoring proper nerve flow in the spine is a big part of what we do and restoring… Taking pressure off of joints so that nerves have some relief, is not just for neck pain and back pain but its also for the function of your whole body.

I’m Dr. Steven 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

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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.