As can be seen in the graph below, Upper Cervical care has produced some tremendous results for many of our patients suffering from neck pain. An amazing 95% of our patients who reported low back pain as a major complaint realized complete or significant relief within 4 weeks.
Low back pain most commonly occurs within the pelvic joints or across the lower back. Both cases come down to a matter of “poor posture”.
An upper cervical misalignment causes your body to “default” to a compensated state away from the ideal balanced posture. This is why you can “think” yourself to a good posture, but cannot maintain it – your non-thinking “default” is crooked!
Correction of the upper cervical misalignment allows the body to “default” to a more balanced and relaxed posture when you are not thinking about it. This relieves the excess muscle tension of holding up a crooked frame and relieves the stress on the discs and joints of the pelvis.
“Since March of 2009 I have had lower back and hip pain that defied relief wtih pain medication and traditional chiropractic treatment extending to December 2009 when I came to Dr. Kuhn. Following my first treatment I cried all the way home to Stony Plain because it was the first relief from pain I had experienced in 9 months.” – Patricia
“I came [to Providence] because of recurring back pain. I had been in physiotherapy and had received quite regular chiropractic treatment. Although this helped, my lower back pain kept recurring. Someone recommended Dr. Creswell and I felt that it was worth a try as he had helped my friend.
After treatment, my back pain would go away quickly and after a few months I needed to come less often. Now I rarely have back pain and I only need to come 2 or 3 times per year.” – Jean
About the condition
Low back pain (a.k.a. Lumbalgia or Lumbago) is a condition that will affect nearly everyone at some point in their lives. While some of these cases will be self-limiting and not require intervention to resolve, many develop into chronic conditions that drastically affect that person’s quality of life. Low back pain is most often attributable to sprain or strain of the muscles and ligaments of the low back but can also be due to injury of the disc in which case it can also often lead to sciatica.
Many conventionally available treatments for low back pain (according to studies) have only limited success and are often an ongoing regimen of treatment, keeping the patient functioning but not ever correcting the condition in the long term.
Theory of how upper cervical treatment helps
Posture, posture, posture! What your mom told you was absolutely right. However, the thing your mom didn’t tell you was that the alignment of your upper cervical spine controls your resting or default posture. So, yes, you can “sit up straight” and use correct posture while you are thinking about it, but the moment your focus wavers, your body will fall back into the compensated state that it knows is the next best place for it to be.
Proper upper cervical care will correct the misalignment between your skull and neck, allowing the body to fall back into a default of a balanced and “correct” posture. That means that you can have the good posture your mother always talked about when you aren’t thinking about it!
A balanced posture allows the muscles of the low back to relax and function in a more balanced manner. Relaxing these muscles also gives the bones and discs of the low back a break. Muscle tension in the back can increase the compressive force on the discs up to 7 times the normal force of gravity!