Dr. Dave explains why 80% of North Americans get back pain: acute injuries, accumulated micro-trauma from pregnancy or repetitive work, or unknown causes. He argues that online stretches won't fix it without understanding your personal story, and recommends professional assessment instead.
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Hey everyone, it's Dr. Dave. Hopefully you're all doing well, enjoying yourselves, and you're out there creating those great experiences every day. You know what can get in the way of a great experience every day? I'll tell you, it's back pain. Back pain is not fun, but you can be better. If you're one of these people who has back pain and you've done everything, tried everything, or you've been told there's nothing you can do, if you're one of these people who wakes up in the morning, and it takes a lot of effort to get yourself vertical, and you're wondering, how did I suddenly get 20 years older? If every step reminds you that you have a back problem, if it's hard for you to bend, lift, and do what you need and want to do every day, especially spending time with your activities, your pastimes, your hobbies, maybe with friends and family, your children, your grandchildren, basically if your back just hurts, then, you know, common thinking is, how did this ever happen? Like, where did this come from? And then quite often we end up in the why me scenario, right? Well, back pain can happen for a lot of reasons, and you're not alone because about 80% of North Americans at some point in their life are going to have an episode of back pain. And the crazy thing is about 40% of that 80% is going to end up having chronic low back pain or back pain that persists to some extent for the rest of their life. And that's about a third of the population. So for you to have a reminder every day that you have a back problem That's why back pain just isn't fun, right? But you can be better. So back pain can obviously be caused by accidents. If you've had a car accident, if you've had a slip and fall, if you've had a sporting accident, then yes, you can definitely hurt your back. But usually that's acute back pain. If you do the right things, if you see the right people and you get it taken care of properly, it should just be an episode that you're done with and never have an issue again, barring any more accidents. Accidents or injuries. But a lot of times because of misdiagnosis, undertreatment, um, bad situation, the pain goes away but the problem doesn't and some dysfunction stays there. Now you may or may not have any episodes like that, but back pain can also come from things that aren't related to macro trauma. It doesn't need to be a big event. It could be an accumulation of things through life like micro trauma. So even things like pregnancy, uh, can cause back pain. Working at a job with physical labor, but repeatedly day after day, or working at a sedentary job day after day, like computer work, can also cause back pain. And the crazy thing, and the hardest thing to really embrace and understand, is that sometimes back pain happens just because. And whether it's come from macro trauma, micro trauma, or we just don't know, the reality is it's no one thing that's probably caused it. It's probably an accumulation of all the things you've done while you've been walking this globe of ours as a human being, and it just accumulates, right? And that accumulation, that buildup, is usually what we see when we find patients, even if they've had an injury, the weakest link is because something hasn't been working right, sitting right, and there's been a lack of maintenance. That just wasn't taken care of properly, and it's just a reflection in the current moment of what's happened in your life. Now, why is that important? Well, chiropractors love that information. We wanna hear the story. We wanna spend the time to know who has the back pain, not just where or what the back pain is, because what you've been through and what you're experiencing and where you wanna go with that problem and what you wanna see as an outcome is valuable. Why? Because it helps determine the cause or source of what's keeping your body from just being healthy and pain-free on its own. Because that's what it wants. So when you can identify those things and take care of those, you're avoiding a temporary situation. You're not just masking the situation. It's just not a Band-Aid that you're throwing on there. You're actually trying to correct the cause or source of that back discomfort. So hopefully it's gonna be way less likely that you ever have to deal with it again, right? So contrary to popular belief, you actually can be better. You can escape your back pain, and it starts with that first step. You know, a lot of people on social media, you'll see it on Instagram, you'll see some tips on Twitter, you'll see it on YouTube for sure. There's a lot of back stretches, a lot of back exercises, a lot of back things that you can do to try and get better or stay better. And the reason, you know, I haven't done them yet, I probably will because it's useful, it's valuable for those people out there who are going to try and get better on their own anyway. But I really truly believe that with some of these things, like if your TV is broken, Go see the TV repairman and don't make it worse unless you're qualified in some way to work on that TV. There's way too much DIY and people I think are wasting a lot of time and money, maybe getting an outcome or a result that could have been done much easier, much faster, maybe even much better depending on the situation had they gotten the help that they really needed. And that's why a third of the population ends up with chronic back pain because they're not taking that step. Now I don't blame them. It's good to be able to take care of yourself and you do need to maintain, but sometimes I think you need to get that or at least get some advice in person so someone can check you. So I'm hesitant to give advice without checking someone because I don't know. I don't know your story, but I would love to know your story because then I think we can do something for you that's much more specific in getting you better. So talk to your friends, talk to your family, find out if they see a chiropractor, and if they like them, chances are you'll like them. You should go see them for that. Take that first step for that consultation and examination and find out what your options are to get out of that back pain. Listen, if you're in the Greater Toronto Area and you can make it to Yonge and Bloor in Yorkville and you want to come and get another opinion or you want to get some advice, then check us out on social media, check out the website, send me an email, give us a call. I'm happy to answer your questions before you come in, but let's get to the bottom of this. Let's find out what your options are so that you can set up a plan for success when it comes to your back pain and you can get ready for some fun, right? Are you ready to be pain-free? I bet you are, alright? So make that call today. Would love to hear from you.
