Show #492 Airing Sunday, 9/6/09
Did you ever suffer an injury as a kid? Maybe playing football or tennis, or perhaps you fell off your bike. An injury from your past may be the cause of your back pain today! Here to explain is Dr. Noel Abood from the Solon Spine and Wellness Center.
Question: That football injury happened decades ago! Why should it come back to haunt us now?
Answer: No matter what happened to you when you were young, just about everyone develops degenerative disc disease – or what some call arthritis of the spine – as they age to some degree.
But, whenever there’s a trauma to your body, whether it’s an injury from the war, sports or even a fall, if it doesn’t heal properly, you are speeding up the onset of the arthritis.
You can think of it this way – if you plant a small sapling tree and it gets blown over a bit by strong winds, it will still grow, but not straight and tall; it will grow a little funny.
The spine is the same way. If there is trauma to it, it will still grow but it may be damaged or crooked.
Question: What are the symptoms of degenerative disc disease? How would we know we have it?
Answer: Not surprisingly, there’s back pain. There’s also weakness. Patients lean forward or walk bent forward to take the pressure off the disc. They can’t walk as much or as far - or do any activity - without having to stop and rest frequently.
Question: So, how do we fix it?
Answer: We’ve found that lumbar decompression can have a tremendous healing effect on the disc. The patient lies down on a table and the spine is gently pulled for thirty seconds then relaxed for thirty seconds.
This allows blood and nutrients into the disc so the body can heal itself.
It’s like yeast in flour – it helps the disc grow and expand.
Question: Can you show us what you mean using the spine you brought with you?
Answer: Sure. Think of the injured disc as a scab.
If you rip the scab open, you can let air and fresh blood to circulate.
The same goes for lumbar decompression – though there’s no pain with this.
Again, it’s just opening up that space to let blood flow through and allow natural healing to take place.
Even if you had an injury way back when, it doesn’t mean you have to live with back pain now. To learn more, give Dr. Abood a call. His number’s next.
