Dr. Dave explains how the spine's four natural curves make it 16 times more resilient, and how sitting, phone use, and slouching flatten them back into a C-shape, causing pain. Restoring these curves through chiropractic care and corrective exercises prevents long-term damage.
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increases the resiliency of the spine by about 16 times. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Dave, Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic, and I got a great story for you today. I hope you enjoy it. This is your spine, and this is almost the same size and shape as an adult spine. And from the side, this thing has got 4 curves in it. It's got a curve in the neck, curve in the mid-back, curve in the lower back, and a curve in your tailbone or pelvis. From front to back, we like to see that it's straight up and down. But these curves that are here weren't always here. When we were born, we were actually shaped like a letter C. We only had one big curve. That kind of made it a little bit easier, not a lot easier, but a little bit easier to come out of the birth canal, but it also provided some protection and comfort to the developing baby. As the baby got older and we started to change some diapers, maybe after the second or third month, we started to put baby on its belly for some belly time. And what would happen is the baby would try to look up and see the world, and it would start to develop this curve in the neck. Then when baby baby wanted to get around and see even more of the world and it started to crawl, the pendulous belly would pull down on that lower back and help to develop the curve in the lower back. So after about a year of that, give or take, baby was ready to see the world even faster and wanted to stand upright. And in that time frame with that development, hopefully those curves help place everything in a proper position over what we call the center of gravity. So that's kind of cool because that system increases the resiliency of the spine by about 16 times. Now why that's important, the story behind the story is that if we were able to preserve that, we would get really good function out of this for a really long time, probably longer than we're designed to walk around on this earth. Computer use, just casual binging and watching those Netflix series, and sometimes even long periods of sitting and slouching without proper support or awareness. And what can happen is we start to lose either the neck curve or the low back curve or the mid-back curve becomes excessive, but then we're headed back toward that letter C and we want it We've worked to try so hard to create those curves way back in our life that we don't want to lose them because in this position, that's where the joints can move optimally and they protect our nervous system the best. When there's changes there, it creates dysfunction and inability to move, but we still want to move. So when we go to move, but this isn't sitting and moving right, that conflict is what creates our neck pain and our back pain. So chiropractic care is really focused on restoring the structure and function of those parts so that when we go to move, The joints can do it again, no conflict, no pain or symptoms. Now I wish we could do that like that, but sometimes it takes a little bit of— retraining is easier the sooner we're able to identify and slow, stop, and reverse that progress. But sometimes it's been there so long that even these parts have already started to degenerate and it's harder to get some of that structure and function back, but it's always possible if you hang in there especially and follow some steps. But anyway, that's the story about the curves in the spine. I hope you enjoyed it. And as chiropractors, it's really interesting because it's how we help get a lot of people better with neck or back pain. So if you're wondering how good your curves are or how well all those joints are functioning based on where they're sitting and moving, go get this thing, thing checked. Make sure you take good care of it because it is designed to last a lifetime. All right, I hope you enjoyed the story. Enjoy the rest of your day. Take care.
