Is it Possible to be too Injured to Receive Chiropractic Help for Lower Back Pain?

If you’ve been considering chiropractic treatment for that lower back pain, but are a little afraid because your back pain was caused by an injury and it still hasn’t fully recovered yet, then this blog is for you. Here I will try to answer and logically explain with evidence whether it is possible to receive chiropractic treatment for lower back pain while still recovering from an injury and the necessary precautions that ought to be taken for it.

If you already know what chiropractic treatment is, you can skip this part. For those of you who do not know, chiropractic treatment is the manipulation of the spine performed by an expert chiropractor in an attempt to methodically align your torso with the rest of your body as it is meant to be. This is believed to help with several illnesses and injuries starting from digestion problems to post-operative recovery.

Now let’s get to the real question; can anyone get too injured, especially in the lower back area, that it becomes impossible or too risky for them to receive chiropractic treatment?

In normal, healthy tissues, spinal manipulation can be effective and beneficial as it literally ‘sets the body right’. But if the soft tissues are injured, usually there is inflammation. And inflammation is worsened by sudden movements, strain, and heat. All of which are often caused by or happens during receiving chiropractic treatment. 

Some studies show that receiving chiropractic treatment before the inflammation from an injury is properly healed can cause some serious issues. A systematic review penned down in 2007 on the serious injuries that are associated with found that the cases with artery dissection, nerve injury, fracture, dural tear, disc herniation, and other such injuries were worsened by spinal manipulation. Another systematic review from 2013 showed several risks of receiving chiropractic treatment while still in recovery from an injury which included risks of developing cauda equina syndrome, lumbar disk herniation, hemorrhage, by as high as 30% to 39%. 

So as you can see, the problem is not associated with the injury or chiropractic treatment from a chiropractic in Mesa, AZ, but rather with inflammation. Inflammation is how your body primarily reacts to any kind of inertia or injury. This is how your body releases the damaged cells and debris or tissue once they die. The particles that have been expelled then start acting as antigens that stimulate a non-specific immune response to the injury and cause an increase in blood flow in that area. The arteriolar blood flow is then redistributed causing the production if stasis and hypoxia on the site of the injury. This causes swelling, pain, and redness in the injured area. 

Once a part of your body is injured and has an inflammation, the best treatment to give to it is proper rest and ice therapy as recommended by your physiotherapist. Once the void of tissue is completely filled by new ones, then you can start other treatments to cure the injury or its consequences. 

Thanks to LifeCare Chiropractic for their insight into chiropractic care and lower back pain.