I’ve had a few interesting things happen with a couple of the emergency patients I’ve seen this week.
One, a nurse, had been suffering with severe neck pain, headaches and low back pain. She attributed this to wearing a mask – a one size fits all type that obscured the lower part of her vision causing her to have to strain her neck down to see numerous during her shift.
The other patient was experiencing severe low back pain and spasms and was having difficulty walking and even getting out of bed. This patient felt her problems started since she’d been working from home using a less than ideal computer work station. I adjusted this patient’s lower back and she felt minimal relief, but then checked and adjusted her neck after which she had significant relief from the low back pain and spasms.
You might be wondering, “how could something in the neck be affecting the lower back?” There are two ways this can occur.
1. Our spines are part of the closed kinetic chain, which is basically the system of interlinked joints and structures from the big toe connecting all the way up to the joint that connects the first neck bone to the base of the skull. If there are mis-alignments anywhere in this chain, it can cause abnormal function some distance above or below that area. In my patient’s case she wasn’t FEELING any neck pain, but when I palpated her neck vertebrae they were very tender. So we found a cause AND solution for the patient’s problem quite a distance away from the area of symptoms.
2. The nerves that run through the neck give signals to the brain that your nerve system uses to modulate the postural muscles in the low back and hips. When the neck is adjusted the brain gets new information that it can use to fine tune muscles in areas below which can lessen pain, spasm while improving function.
This phenomenon of a neck adjustment affecting something further down in the body such as lower back or legs is something I’ve seen numerous times in practice. The next time you develop an ache or pain remember the cause AND solution may be in a place you never expected! Gives new meaning to that old song “the foot bones connected to the thigh bone…”
Stay well,
Dr. Pete
