Each year thousands of Martin County residents are involved in car accidents. Here are 3 reasons to choose chiropractic care after a car accident. Some car accidents cause minor damage while others cause major damage. The severity of the damage to vehicles and the severity of the injuries vary. Did you know that the vehicle […]
You Should Know: Pain Pills Can Make Pain Worse
Pain is one of the body’s vital defense mechanisms. Pain lets the brain know that damage or death has occurred to the cells in the affected area. It’s also the way our body tells us not to use the affected area. Pain lets us know what to do and not do with an injury. Persisting in activities that cause pain often causes more damage and slows healing.
If you’ve ever been in a car accident, you may have refused treatment at the scene only to wake up the next morning feeling intense pain. The reason is your body’s incredible ability to keep you alive. When your car accident happened, your body released an adrenaline rush. An adrenaline rush, like pain, is another of the body’s vital defense mechanisms. An adrenaline rush triggers specific processes in the body to help you survive. It decreases your ability to feel pain, increases your strength temporarily and sharpens your mental focus. If you were being mauled by a tiger, an adrenaline rush is a good thing. It allows you to ignore your injuries and escape becoming a meal for a hungry tiger. However, the rush of adrenaline only decreases pain temporarily. After the effects wear off, you may be desperate to get your hands on immediate pain relief.
It’s understandable that you want to avoid pain. It’s understandable that you want to get back to doing everything you were doing before the injury. However, don’t be fooled by the clever marketing that’s been done to give you the impression that pain relief medications help the body heal faster. Of course, the ads never come right out and say that. There’s a reason for that – they can’t because it’s not true.
Pain medications do not speed up the healing process. However, pain medications can be very beneficial for the first 7 – 10 days after a traumatic injury. Pain medications – used in the short term – can provide symptomatic relief while chiropractic care breaks up scar tissue and adhesions, relieving stiffness, pain and the discomfort it causes.
We’re learning that you won’t find the solution to pain – even chronic pain – in a pill. Not only are opioid medications dangerous and addictive, they can actually cause your pain to worsen.
Prescription painkillers cause the pain you feel to increase over time.
New studies are painting an especially grim picture pointing to the long term effects of using opioids for chronic pain. It’s call Opioid-Induced Hyperalgesia or OIH. OIH is the increased perception of pain leads to needing higher doses to achieve the desired effect.
Studies show that when you use an opioid, it sets off a chain of immune signals in the spinal cord that amplify pain rather than dulling it, even after the drug leaves the body.1
Peter Grace, a neuroscientist at the University of Colorado Boulder is trying to trace hyperalgesia to the way opioids affect the immune system. His team injured rats to mimic the nerve pain humans feel. Ten days after the injury, half the rats received a 5-day treatment of morphine. Over the next 12 weeks, the researchers periodically measured the rodents’ threshold of pain. After 6 weeks, the injured rats that had received no morphine returned to the same sensitivity as uninjured control rats. Meanwhile, it took morphine-treated rats 12 weeks – twice as long – to return to the same pain sensitivity as the control rats. 2, 3
The higher the dose, more risk of overdose all the while with the patient experiencing increasing pain levels. Some studies suggest that it makes the pain even worse than when the patient began treatment.
Based on what has been learned from animal and human studies, the following may be true:4,5
- The treatment of pain with high doses of opiates may increase the chance of greater levels of pain at later times.
- Taking high doses of opiates for chronic pain may increase levels of postoperative pain, even when their opiate doses are increased.
- People who use or who have used opiates in the past, may have increased pain responses to such procedures as having their blood drawn.
The key takeaway here is that your pain can keep increasing not because of an injury, but due to the action of the opioids themselves.
According to Dr. Al Clavel who specializes in pain medicine, there’s another reason opioids can make pain worse. He writes:
Our bodies have natural opioids called endorphins. If your body becomes used to opioid pain medication, its ability to create and use natural endorphins will decrease. This makes you lose the ability to reduce pain on your own.
Using prescription painkillers to manage pain is a lot like blowing your nose with a tissue filled with sneezing powder!
There are many safer, proven ways to help relieve chronic pain. One is by using over the counter (OTC) painkillers. OTC painkillers include NSAIDs (non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs) and acetaminophen relieve (brand name Tylenol). NSAIDS relieve pain by reducing the production of prostaglandins, which are hormone-like substances that cause pain. Acetaminophen works on the parts of the brain that receive the pain messages.
These are easily available, aren’t habit-forming, and won’t leave you groggy, dizzy, or even constipated. However, these OTC painkillers can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke. They have also been known to cause stomach ulcers and bleeding as well as liver and kidney problems. These risks increase with sustained use. If you’ve been using OTC pain relievers for more than 14 days straight, you should probably talk to your health care provider about the risks. Just because its sold without a prescription doesn’t mean that OTC pain relievers are “safe” for long term use.
Topical pain relievers or liniments are also available without a doctor’s prescription. These products include creams, lotions, or sprays that are applied to the skin in order to relieve pain from sore muscles and arthritis.
Chiropractors specialize in treating the musculoskeletal injuries that cause acute and chronic pain. Chiropractic care includes a variety of pill free/drug free treatment modalities that allow your body to heal naturally.
Chiropractic care is proven effective. A study that compared the effectiveness of prescribed medications to spinal manipulation found that 94% of patients who underwent chiropractic treatment saw a 30% reduction in low back pain after 4 weeks. In comparison only 56% of patients who used regular medical care saw a 30% reduction in low back pain after 4 weeks.5
At Advanced Wellness Solutions, we would love to help you get back to living the life you love pain free! Call us at 855-509-5400 or contact us to schedule an appointment today.
You Should Know: Muscle Relaxing Drugs
If you’ve ever had a muscle spasm, you know how painful it can be. Muscle spasms can cause severe neck and back pain. They can make your life miserable.
Modern chiropractic care provides many treatment modalities that provide drug free pain relief. Before you turn to muscle relaxers for back or neck pain, here’s some things you should know.
If you seek usual medical care (UMC) for back pain, the doctor may prescribe muscle relaxants.1
New treatment guidelines from the ACP strongly recommend that people with back pain first try non-drug measures such as yoga, physical therapy, chiropractic and massage before resorting to over-the-counter or prescription pain relievers and muscle relaxants.2
What are muscle relaxers
The term “muscle relaxers” is definitely deceiving because this classification includes a wide range of drugs with different indications and mechanisms of action.3
Many muscle relaxers cause sedation throughout the central nervous system. In other words, they make all of your muscles relax, not just the tight ones. They also make you feel sleepy. If acute pain from an injury is making it difficult to sleep, this can be a good thing. Sleep helps you heal. However, this can make living your life during your waking hours difficult.
There is growing concern surrounding these drugs because it is not clear how effective muscle relaxers are when it comes to relieving pain. Concerns have been also raised about the adverse side effects involved with many of these drugs. In addition to sedation, potential adverse effects include drowsiness, headache, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting and the potential for addiction.3
Acute Pain vs Chronic Pain
Acute pain is immediate pain. You can often identify what you were doing to cause the pain. Sometimes the cause of acute pain can be a seemingly harmless movement, like lifting something heavy. On the other hand, chronic pain is pain that lasts beyond the typical expected healing period.
Jeffrey E. Keller is a Board Certified Emergency Physician with 25 years of emergency medicine practice experience before moving full time into his “true calling” of Correctional Medicine. His recommendations to physicians regarding prescribing muscle relaxers in his post Skeletal Muscle Relaxers Do Not Relax Skeletal Muscles.
1. Never prescribe muscle relaxers long term for chronic conditions.
2. If you prescribe a “muscle relaxer” for acute low back pain, use them only for a short time. The number usually bandied about is no more than 7 days.
Ignore Pain at Your Peril
Pain is simply one way your body communicates with you. It’s your brain’s way of saying, “STOP! BE CAREFUL! This part of your body needs your attention!”
Muscle relaxers mask the symptom of muscle spasm pain. A muscle spasm is not only a reaction to an injury, it’s also your body’s way of trying to protect itself from further injury.
Chiropractic is a health care profession dedicated to providing non-surgical treatment of disorders of the nervous system and musculoskeletal system. Chiropractors have a wide assortment of proven treatments and modalities that can provide drug free pain relief for muscle spasms.4
Advanced Wellness Solutions focuses on creating individualized treatment plans incorporating treatment modalities combined with the use of patient-driven care such as exercise, activity modification, and ergonomic modifications. In other words, Dr. Danielle has a lot of tricks up her sleeve to help you get drug free relief from muscle spasm pain.
Contact Advanced Wellness Solutions at 855-509-5400 to schedule your appointment today.
Five Ways Chronic Pain Affects You
There’s no doubt about it. Chronic pain is a thief. It robs you of enjoying daily activities and can even damage your overall health. Here are five ways chronic pain affects you.
If you’re suffering from chronic pain, here’s what you should know about the way chronic pain affects you and your health.
There are two types of pain: acute and chronic. Acute pain is the pain you feel immediately after an injury. Chronic pain is defined as pain that lasts beyond the expected period of healing for an illness or injury.
We’re learning that even low grade chronic pain can affect every aspect of your life. Patients suffering from chronic pain are often at risk for developing further complications, including altered mental states and physical dysfunctions. Studies show that chronic pain actually changes the way the human brain responds to acute pain.1
The constant assault of chronic pain can affect your life in a number of ways. According Perry G. Fine, MD of the Department of Anesthesiology, School of Medicine, Pain Research Center, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, in the Long-Term Consequences of Chronic Pain include:
- sleep disturbances
- cognitive processes and brain function
- mood/mental health
- cardiovascular health
- sexual function
Chronic pain affects your thoughts, feelings, sleep patterns,, memory and concentration and your relationships. This robs you of the pleasures of everyday life, not to mention harming your sexual, mental and physical health.
5 Ways Chronic Pain Affects You :
#1: Chronic Pain Robs You of Healthy Sleep
Your skeletal muscles possess the amazing ability to completely regenerate following injury. Muscles and tissues repair during sleep.2 However, pain disturbs your sleep. This sets up a catch-22. Sleep helps your body heal. If you’re not getting good quality sleep, your body can’t heal effectively. However, because you’re in pain, you can’t sleep. As this cycle repeats, it affects your mental, sexual and physical health.
According to SleepFoundation.org,
We know that pain triggers poor sleep. For instance, someone experiencing lower back pain may experience several intense microarousals (a change in the sleep state to a lighter stage of sleep) per each hour of sleep, which lead to awakenings. However, microarousals are innocuous for a person not experiencing chronic pain. Pain is a serious intrusion to sleep. Pain is frequently associated with insomnia and these coexisting problems can be difficult to treat. One problem can exacerbate the other.
#2: It Robs You of the Ability to Think and Remember
If you’re in chronic pain, you’re not operating at your cognitive best. Cognitive processes such as memory and attention have been shown to be impaired in up to two thirds of patients with chronic pain.3 A comparative study assessed the cognitive functions in adults with chronic pain. Forty participants had chronic pain while twenty-nine were pain-free. The chronic pain participants performed significantly worse than the pain-free participants on the cognitive measures of long-term memory, selective attention, processing speed, and executive functioning. Significant differences between groups were evident in all cognitive domains. 4
#3: It Robs Your Emotional Healthy
The emotional effects of chronic pain include:
- Depression
- Anger
- Anxiety, and
- Fear of re-injury
Chronic pain can influence your thoughts, feelings, memory, concentration, and even connections with others. Living with chronic pain can affect your mood, making you more susceptible to depression, anxiety, and fear. Chronic pain can has been demonstrated to sleep disturbances, depression, and a heightened risk of suicide.5
Such mood disorders can also promote a dependence upon prescription medications designed to treat the pain, such as opioids. The more scared, alone or sad you feel, the more likely you are to depend upon medications which temporarily mask the pain by providing a “euphoric” feeling. However, when the effects of the medication wear off, the negative feelings return. If you’re suffering from chronic pain, this is yet another catch-22 cycle you can find yourself in.
#4: It Robs You of Your Cardiovascular Health
Chronic pain can lead to a chronic stress reaction that causes an increase in blood pressure and heart rate. This stress reaction can lead to harmful health effects, such as a reduced ability to fight off illnesses and diseases. It also can increase the risk for conditions such as heart disease.6
#5: It Robs You of Your Sexuality
Chronic pain may interfere with your sexuality because of the pain itself. However, other factors associated with your chronic pain, including mood disorders, decreased sex drive (libido), medications or stress, can also affect your sexual function 7.
Gentle Chiropractic Care Can Provide Drug Free Relief from Chronic Pain.
Let’s be honest, there is no “one size fits all” solution to chronic pain. (This is the type of thinking that has lead to the opioid crisis.) However, there are many drug free therapies and modalities which can dramatically reduce and even eliminate chronic pain.
Gentle Chiropractic Care harnesses the body’s innate ability to heal itself without resorting to dangerous drugs or life altering surgery. This is accomplished through manual manipulations of the spine and joints. The goal of chiropractic treatment is to restore the neuro-skeletal system to fully functioning capacity.
Gentle chiropractic spinal mobilization is used to restore or to enhance joint function. Unlike traditional high-velocity spinal manipulation, gentle chiropractic modalities utilize slow movement, usually to a firm endpoint of joint movement.
One of the benefits of gentle chiropractic care is that it can be tailored to meet your specific needs. Dr. Danielle uses modified modalities that target a specific joint or area of the spine.
You Should Know: Carpal tunnel syndrome
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a surprisingly common condition that causes pain, numbness, and tingling in the hand and arm.
The pain, numbness and tingling is caused by pressure on the median nerve. The carpal tunnel is a narrow passageway in your wrist. It is surrounded by bones and ligaments on the palm side of your hand. The median nerve passes through this narrow passageway. When the median nerve is compressed, the symptoms can include numbness, tingling and weakness in the hand and arm.
In its early stages, carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms may include your hand tingles and feels weak, or the fingers numb, or both. These symptoms can often disrupt your sleep.
Diagnosis:
Sometimes carpal tunnel syndrome can be mistaken for something else, such as pressure on nerves in the neck due to disc problems or arthritis, which can cause similar symptoms. A nerve conduction study can be used to confirm a carpal tunnel syndrome diagnosis as well as measure how severe the compression of the nerve is.
Treatment:
Numbness, tingling and pain in your hands, fingers and wrist is an example of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. Early correct diagnosis and treatment can dramatically improve your outcome. Treatment modalities depend upon the cause of your symptoms.
If Left Untreated:
It’s important to seek treatment if you have signs and symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome that interfere with your normal activities and sleep patterns. Permanent nerve and muscle damage can occur without treatment.
If left untreated, you may begin dropping things. Activities that require fine finger movements, such as writing or fastening buttons, will become more difficult. You may begin to feel you are losing coordinated movement of your fingers. Moving your thumb may also become difficult.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is compression of the median nerve. This compression can lead to permanent nerve and muscle damage without treatment. Dr. Danielle’s EMG/NCV certifications make her uniquely qualified to diagnose and treat this condition. She can also help you to determine if surgery is necessary.
Your first appointment will take approximately 55 minutes, giving you plenty of time to communicate your concerns. This also gives Dr. Danielle time to explain in easy to understand terms your condition and treatment goals.
Contact our office by calling 855-509-5400 to schedule your appointment.
Super Bowl Super Sick Monday
There’s a big push to make the day after the Super Bowl a holiday. According to the NY Post, 24 percent of Americans say the day after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday. The reason behind the push goes beyond the junk food and alcohol consumed while watching the game. The game runs late so many lose sleep that night.
Even if you didn’t “eat, drink and make merry,” just by loosing sleep you can still wake up feeling as if you did.
There’s good news if the Super Bowl represents a single “glitch” in your normal nightly sleep routine. According to recent studies, you can expect to fully recover from a single sleep deficit in four days. That means your withdrawal from football is going to last a lot longer than your Super Bowl Monday sickness. Unfortunately, many of us don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis and good quality sleep helps you heal. If you’ve been injured in a car accident or are suffering from chronic pain, you need to sleep so your body can heal itself.
Sleep deficiency is serious
For those who lose sleep on a regular basis, there’s a lot of bad news on the horizon. Sleep deprivation can quickly spiral into the much more serious condition, sleep deficiency. According to the NIH,
Sleep deficiency can lead to physical and mental health problems, injuries, loss of productivity, and even a greater risk of death. Sleep deficiency also is associated with an increased risk of injury in adults, teens, and children. For example, driver sleepiness (not related to alcohol) is responsible for serious car crash injuries and death. In the elderly, sleep deficiency might be linked to an increased risk of falls and broken bones. In addition, sleep deficiency has played a role in human errors linked to tragic accidents, such as nuclear reactor meltdowns, grounding of large ships, and aviation accidents.
Sleep deficiency has also been linked to many chronic health problems, including heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity, and depression. Studies suggest that sleep loss (defined as less than 7 hours per night) may have wide-ranging effects on the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, and nervous systems, including the following:
- Obesity in adults and children
- Diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance
- Cardiovascular disease and hypertension
- Anxiety symptoms
- Depressed mood
- Alcohol use
As you can see, sleep deficiency is a serious health issue.
Want to know if you’re sleep deficient?
If you’re experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness, you’re probably not getting enough quality sleep. However, there are other symptoms including:
- yawning
- moodiness
- fatigue
- irritability.
- depressed mood.
- difficulty learning new concepts.
- forgetfulness.
- inability to concentrate or a “fuzzy” head.
If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms, start keeping a sleep diary. Write down
- when you went to bed
- how long it took you to fall asleep
- when you woke up
- how alert and rested you feel in the morning
- how sleepy you feel during the day.
Do this for at least two weeks. If you live in Stuart or Palm City, Florida, you should schedule an appointment with Advanced Wellness Solutions to go over your sleep diary. You’ll be glad you did.
Get Relief from Chronic Pain
No one likes living with chronic pain, but many of us push through rather than address the underlying issue(s). Did you know that chronic pain can harm your health even if it’s not limiting your activities? Fortunately, effective gentle chiropractic care can provide drug free relief from chronic pain.
Chronic Pain Significantly Impacts Your Overall Health
If you’re living with (and ignoring) chronic pain, university medical school studies reveal that you may be doing long term damage to your overall health.
According to a University of Utah School of Medicine report published at NCBI, chronic pain significantly impacts your overall health. One of the ways chronic pain can affect your health is by disrupting your sleep. According to a study released by the American Psychological Association, healthy sleep has been proven to be the single most important factor in predicting longevity. Healthy sleep is more influential than diet, exercise, or heredity for predicting longevity!
Another negative health effect of chronic pain is it impairs your cognitive processes, brain function – even your your mood and your mental health. 1 2 3
As if that laundry list weren’t enough, the University of Utah study shows that chronic pain can even impact your cardiovascular health, not to mention your sexual function.
Gentle Chiropractic Care Provides Drug Free Relief from Chronic Pain.
The good news is that chronic pain can often be successfully managed without drugs, injections or surgery.
Modern chiropractic care addresses so much more than just neck and back pain. Modern chiropractors treat the whole person – not just a specific body part.
Dr. Danielle has helped hundreds of patients find drug free relief from chronic pain.
If you’re dealing with chronic pain – don’t delay! Chronic pain can have a domino effect on your overall health!
Don’t suffer another day with chronic pain!, You owe it to yourself to schedule an appointment with Advanced Wellness Solutions. Call 855-509-5400 to schedule your appointment today.
Chiropractic Treatment: Disc Herniation
“Oh no! Not a herniated disc!” This phrase is probably uttered every day in doctor’s offices across the country.
Your vertebrae is made up of a series of rubbery discs that acts as cushions between each of the bones that make up the spine. When a disc is “herniated” it means that the soft center of a rubbery disc is pushing through a crack in the tougher exterior casing.
You might be surprised to learn that some people have a herniated disc and don’t know it. Unfortunately, in some cases this condition can irritate nearby nerves and result in pain, numbness, or weakness in an arm or leg.
You should know that with proper treatment a herniated disc does not mean a lifetime sentence of unbearable pain.
Are herniated disc serious? Yes. However with proper care and monitoring many herniated discs can be managed successfully.
Seek immediate medical attention if you present with any of the following symptoms:
- Loss of balance
- Loss of bladder control
- Loss of sensation especially in the inner part of the thighs
- Loss of consciousness
- Vomiting
- Symptoms are rapidly getting worse
A disc herniation falls into a broader category of disc derangement.
Disc derangement is when the disc positioned between your vertebrae has damage to its structure. This damage can be minor or major depending on age and type of trauma. The disc is a made up of a gelatinous center called the nucleus pulposus surrounded by fibrocartilaginous material (annulus fibrosis). When the annulus fibrosus is torn due to stress the gelatinous nucleus pulposus can ooze out creating disc derangement. How far that gelatinous nucleus pulposus oozes out is what determines what kind of disc derangement you have.
There are four stages of disc derangement:
- degeneration,
- prolapse,
- extrusion,
- and sequestration.
Degeneration is where the nucleus pulposus is no longer in a nice contained area but rather is oozing into the layers of annulus fibrosis. The oozing hasn’t gone far but the nucleus pulposus is no longer contained.
Prolapse is when the nucleus pulposus is pushing all the way out to the last layers of the annulus fibrosis. It hasn’t left the confinement of the disc but its close.
Extrusion is when nucleus pulposus has left the confinement of the annulus fibrosis. This is the state where nucleus pulposus can physically start interfering with surrounding structures.
Finally sequestration is when the nucleus pulposus has left the confinement of the annular fibrosis and has broken off into little pieces. These pieces can travel and cause interference with the surrounding structures.
Any stage of disc derangement can cause pain. How much pain depends upon the individual and the location of the derangement. However extrusion and sequestration can pose the most serious risk of the four. Anytime nucleus pulposus has left its confinement, it can cause impingement and pain.
When a disc undergoes derangement it was believed that it actually pinched a nerve causing pain. Although that can be the case with some types of derangement, in general the pain associated with disc derangement comes from the inflammatory response of the body to the change in structure. The inflammation occurs around the deranged disc and then the nerve and other pain sensitive structures become irritated, causing pain.
Herniated discs are diagnosed with MRI imaging which can tell the doctor where and what type of disc derangement is present. MRI imaging can also show the doctor if any other structures are being physically intruded by the disc derangement.
What are the symptoms of a herniated disc?
Disc derangement can have many presentations and should always be check by a qualified medical professional such as a medical doctor or chiropractor.
Some people have herniated discs and do not demonstrate any symptoms. However when symptoms do arise they are different depending on location of the herniated disc.
Cervical disc herniation symptoms:
- Pain in the arm or hand, this pain often feels like it is traveling down the arm or radiating
- Numbness and tingling
- Weakness in the arms
- In severe cases reduced reflexes in the upper limbs with increased reflexes in the lower limbs
Lumbar disc herniation symptoms:
- Low back pain that travels down the buttocks, legs and feet
- Numbness and tingling
- Weakness in the legs
- Decreased reflexes
Risk factors for herniated disc:
- Overweight: excess weight puts extra stress and different weight loading on discs
- Physically demanding jobs
- Genetics: a family history of disc herniation
- Age: most likely to occur between 30-50
What causes a herniated disc?
Herniated discs happen gradually with repeat stress. A person can’t often pinpoint when they herniated a disc. For example, someone may say that bending over to pick up a piece of paper caused their symptoms. In this case, it wasn’t the simple act of bending over but rather the repeated stress to the disc that caused the herniation. When that person bent over, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
How do you treat a herniated disc?
Treatments for a herniated disc include:
- Chiropractic treatment with adjustments
- Cervical traction
- Physical therapy
- At home exercises and stretches
- Postural correction
- Weight reduction
- OTC, muscle relaxers and other narcotics
- Surgery
Chiropractic care with flexion distraction has been shown to be helpful in disc herniation treatment.
An important thing to remember with a herniated disc is to avoid too much bed rest. Taking it easy and not lifting heavy things is fine but lying in bed waiting for the pain to go away is one of the worst things you can do for your spine. Retaining motion is crucial when there is a herniation of a disc.
Not every herniated disc needs intervention. If you are experiencing herniated disc symptoms or fear you have a herniated disc, and you live in Stuart, Florida or Palm City, Florida, you should contact Advanced Wellness Solutions.
Chiropractic Treatment: Facet Syndrome
Do you have dull aching pain in the back of your neck?
Does that pain sometimes travel down to your arms?
Is your neck not moving as well as it has before?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you could be suffering from facet syndrome. Facet syndrome is degenerative joint disease of the facet joint that can mimic the symptoms of a herniated disc.
The facet joints play an important role in stabilizing the spine while allowing movement. When these joints become injured in some way, it can result in considerable pain and disability. Since there are facet joints throughout most of the spine, this is a condition that can affect the neck, upper back and the lower back. Even though facet syndrome can occur in any facet joint, it appears most often in high movement and weight bearing areas such as the neck and low back.
While facet syndrome often presents in patients older than age 50, anyone suffering from repeated trauma such as whiplash or multiple car accidents can suffer from facet syndrome.
Chiropractic care specializes in treating disorders of the musculoskeletal system and can offer some of the most effective treatment options for facet syndrome.
What causes facet syndrome?
The cause of facet syndrome is still unclear. There are several factors that can contribute to the presentation of facet syndrome.
These factors are:
- Age 50 or older
- Repeated trauma to the neck or low back
- Repetitive stressful movement
- Genetics
Degeneration of the facet joint due to age or trauma causes the inflammation that produces pain in facet syndrome. Inflammation irritates the small nerves located in the facet joint causing pain.
What are the symptoms of facet syndrome?
The symptoms vary from depending on the area that is involved.
In the cervical region the symptoms that may present are:
- Headaches
- Inflammation
- Neck and shoulder pain
- Limited range of motion when turning the head and bending the neck
- Stiffness
In the lumbar region the symptoms that may present are:
- Lower back pain
- Tenderness
- Stiffness
- Radiating pain down the buttocks or back of the thighs
- Pain when twisting or arching the lower back
How do you treat facet syndrome?
In both the cervical and lumbar regions treatment usually starts conservative.
Conservative treatments include:
- Chiropractic adjustments
- Acupuncture
- Massage
- Physical Therapy
- NSAIDs
- Hot/Cold therapy
- Range of motion exercises
- At home stretching
If conservative treatment fails there are other options such as:
- Intra-articular facet injections
- Median nerve block
- Radiofrequency neurotomy
- Cervical Fusion
Surgical options are usually not necessary because conservative treatment often resolves the issue. All surgical intervention should not be taken lightly and should only be considered if a great deal of conservative treatment has failed.
If you are experiencing symptoms of facet syndrome and wish to discuss your treatments options, contact us at 855-509-5400
