Issaquah Chiropractor, Issaquah Chiropractic

Understanding the source of your pain.

Are you experiencing pain or tingling radiating into your arms and hands, legs, or feet?
Do you have low back pain?
Do you have neck pain, stiffness, or pain with motion?
Have you had an accident?
Do you have headaches?
Do you have pain in the upper back and across the shoulders?

Sciatica, Pinched Nerve, Radiculopathy
Sciatica, a "pinched nerve", is an extremely painful condition characterized by sharp burning sensations down the back of the leg from the low back. It can be accompanied by severe low back pain, numbness in areas of the leg, or even by weakness in the leg. Sciatica may be totally disabling, can last for months, and may re-occur throughout a person's lifetime. In a 2000 study, at Northwestern Health Science University, leg symptoms and low back pain improved by 50% and 84% respectively with chiropractic treatment. Chiropractic care should be your first choice, before you try more invasive procedures.

Sciatica often results from inflammation in the area of the nerves that come out between the bones of the low back and go down into the legs. This inflammation is caused by damage to the joints or discs in the back. This damage may be due to a recently occurring accident or injury. In contrast, damage to the spine will occur when a chronic poor posture has weakened the body's natural structure and the joints are under unusual stress. This is common with Osteoarthritis, and allows the "straw that broke the camels back" incident, where something like picking up a pencil, "throws your back out". In a study from the Royal University Hospital in Canada, of the 59 patients who received chiropractic care, 90% reported improvement in low back pain and radiating leg pain. Seventy-five percent of those individuals had significantly increased range of motion.

A randomized trial in the prestigious European Spine Journal revealed that spinal adjustments to alleviate Sciatica due to lumbar disc herniation produced a significantly greater improvement for back pain than a standard surgical intervention. We feel it is important to exhaust safer and more cost-effective treatments, like chiropractic, before resorting to more invasive procedures. If these methods do not bring relief, the doctors at Banic Chiropractic Clinic can refer patients to some of the best surgeons in the area.

Chiropractic and Low Back Pain
A recent clinical practice guideline, published by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, states that for acute low back problems in adults, "Relief of discomfort can be accomplished most safely with non-prescription medication and/or spinal manipulation". The AHCPR recommendations for treatment of acute low back pain were made after an exhaustive review of over 350 scientific articles on the subject of low back pain. Among these were more than 37 randomized controlled trials of spinal manipulation for low back pain.

While there are many different causes of low back pain, most incidents occur because of an underlying weakness in the spinal structure of the back. In some cases, such as Scoliosis, this weakness may have been present since birth. More frequently, the underlying structural problem is the result of compensation for old injuries or chronic abnormal postural problems. Many people are aware that they have bad posture, but few understand the dramatic impact these imbalances have on the joints and muscles along the spine and how often bad posture is the culprit in chronic back pain problems. Shifts in spinal alignment are also the primary cause, along with obesity, of early joint and disc degeneration and osteoarthritis. Whether you know you have bad posture, or you have recently suffered from an accident, it is important to get checked. Be sure that you do not have the early risk factors for future back problems. Your future quality of life depends on it.

Chiropractic and Neck Pain, Whiplash
The neck is comprised of seven individual small bones which are arranged in a precise structure to support the head. A delicate curvature must be present to maintain the tripod-like balance of each vertebra atop the next. This curve must be maintained to allow clear passage of the spinal cord and allow the nerves to travel out into the body from between the vertebra. When the bones of the neck move out of normal position, a myriad of problems may occur, including neck pain, headache, and upper back pain. The normal shape of the neck may be lost over time due to long-term postural habits, such as poor computer work station, reading in bed with your head propped forward on pillows, and talking on the phone with your head tilted to the side. The normal shape of the neck may be lost instantaneously in a motor vehicle accident. When the vehicle is hit, the body, subject to inertia, remains essentially motionless while the head and neck snap back into hyperextension and then flex forward forcefully. This causes a signature pattern of damage known as whiplash.

Whatever the cause, abnormal alignment of the neck creates abnormally high strain in the numerous innervated tissues in the region. This results in pain and dysfunction over time and frequently leads to long term problems. Recently developed techniques in chiropractic have demonstrated the ability to restore cervical curvature and reduce pain and these results are stable at long term follow-up. Chiropractic care and massage therapy at Banic Chiropractic Clinic may be a good choice for a patient with chronic neck pain and is essential for someone suffering from whiplash. Do not put off an early visit to your chiropractor after any accident, often the symptoms don't show up for days or even weeks and delay of treatment lengthens healing time and increases the incidence of long term problems.

Chiropractic and Headache
Headache and neck pain sufferers make up as much as one third of patients seeking treatment from doctors of chiropractic. Several studies have linked loss of normal neck alignment to the presence of chronic headache pain. The researchers concluded that the loss of this normal alignment leads to greater muscular effort to support the weight of the head. This leads to muscular fatigue and tension-type headache.

Chiropractors have a long tradition of success in managing headaches. It has been reported that spinal manipulation has an effect comparable to commonly used prescription medications for relief of tension-type and migraine headaches. Several randomized controlled clinical trials have demonstrated positive results in headache treatment. A recently published study by Nilsson, DC, MD, out of Denmark, revealed that chiropractic neck adjustments have a significant beneficial effect in cervicogenic headache. The group receiving adjustments reduced use of painkillers by 36%, reduced headache hours per day by 69%, and reduced headache intensity by 36%. The techniques employed at Banic Chiropractic Clinic have been shown to produce statistically significant improvement in neck curve and reported pain. These results are stable at long term follow-up.

Back & Neck Pain