Chronic back pain typically means it’s been there for a period of time – usually something longer than a year. It really just kind of depends on where that person is at.
There are no two people that I’ve met that are exactly the same so we have to first sit down and we’ve got to figure out what is causing that problem, what is causing that chronic back pain.
One of the things that we do in our office that really differentiates ourselves or separates us from a lot of the other offices is we take the time to figure out where the problem is coming from and we do that through a motion study x-ray, motion study filmography.
We have a state-of-the-art office – digital everything – and we go through and we take these films so we can actually see specifically with pinpoint accuracy exactly what’s moving and what’s not – what’s working and what’s not. Then based on that, that would tell us what direction we need to go in moving forward.
Now if we can help them there’s a couple of things that we typically do through active and passive type care. One of the first things is those areas that aren’t moving – those areas that are causing problems in the spine, causing chronic back pain. We first have to get those moving. There’s gentle and specific adjustments that we can use. We can use an instrument type adjustment – we have that here as well.
For the people that have had chronic issues going on for a long time and they have degenerative disc diseases, there’s techniques that we can use to actually open up and decompress that disc so they can start to hydrate and replenish the way they’re supposed to.
Then also we would introduce into that a series of traction – a corrective cell traction designed to bring proper curves back in the spine. Reinstate or reestablish that structure function relationship so that the body is working and structurally positioned the way that it’s supposed to so that it’s not breaking down, it’s not degenerating, it’s not getting into a state of arthritis, becoming arthritic.
Then the last thing that we want to do is we want to start to ensure that everything is moving and we want to keep it moving. So that’s when we get into the home-care protocol, spinal hygiene protocols.
They are just like dental hygiene. We all brush our teeth every day because we want them to last and look pretty and healthy. For the same reason, we would introduce a spinal hygiene type protocol. Because once we have fixed the problem and we’ve verified that we’ve fixed it (that’s one of the things that we always do is we always need to verify that we corrected the issue and we do that through a follow-up motion study film), then we give you things that you can do at home in order to keep that and maintain that correction so that it doesn’t come back a year from now, five years from now, twenty-five years from now.
The spinal hygiene protocol that we have is an alternating sort of pattern of mobility type exercises and then stability. Again these are based specifically on what’s going on with that person’s body structurally. And we have them do that at home literally thirty seconds a couple times a day. That speeds the entire process up but it also keeps you out of the office so that you can keep doing and living and enjoying the life that you’ve created for yourself.
Dr. Matthew Phinney has a genuine concern for the community’s health and well-being and is dedicated to helping people achieve their health and wellness objectives. Patients seeking his treatment can be assured that they are receiving the highest quality care! Dr. Matthew Phinney of The Chiropractic Doctors can be reached at (616) 432-3103 and is located at 5747 28th St. SE, Suite 101, Grand Rapids, MI 49546.