Our patients and regular readers of our chiropractic and acupuncture care blog know that we are North Bergen’s most celebrated chiropractic care provider. Part of that reason is our commitment to patient and community education regarding painful health conditions that can be addressed via an assortment of chiropractic care services. But we’re not simply about treating pain. Our commitment to managing this blog and public education is motivated by our sincere desire to ward off pain before it ever happens. So today, let’s educate you a bit about lower back pain.
Lower back pain is by far the #1 complaint we see in our office. Pain in the lower back can be coming from a few different areas: lumbar spine, nerves in the lower back, disc pain, muscle pain, hip pain, referral pain from thoracic spine, or SI joint pain. Today let’s focus upon SI joint pain.
The SI joint (sacro iliac joint) is the joint that forms between your sacrum and your ilium (pelvic bone). It's on the very bottom of your spine; there is one to the left and one to the right. It is an often-overlooked problem area which a lot of time is the cause for the lower back pain. Patients will usually present with one sided pain on either the left or the right side. It will hurt most of the time when they are bending forward, as well as getting up and down from a chair, or getting into and out of their car. They can also have radiated pain down the leg if the sciatic nerve is being pinched from the joint being inflamed.
A common muscle that causes issues down the lower back is the piriformis muscle. This little muscle attaches to your sacrum to your hip and in most people the sciatic nerve runs right through it or under it. If that muscle is tight it can cause sciatic pain as well.
If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, please make an appointment with our office and one of our highly trained chiropractic doctors here in North Bergen will diagnose and treat the problem accordingly.
