Back Pain Forum

From Your Questions On Our Radio Program:

“Most of the surgeries that are done, in my opinion, is to cure the MRI than to cure the person. Our clinic is filled with these people who had the surgeries that have failed.”

Low Back Pain
Caller: I have had low back problems for a number of years, and I would say that once or twice a year my back will go out. My back will go out at the strangest times, I could be sitting in a chair and when I get up, it can go out. I am at the end of my wits with this. I have been trying to do everything I can to strengthen it.

Dr. Darrow: Your situation is very common; most of the people who have back pain, and that is about 80% of the population at some point or another who have recurrent back pain like you do, have what we call lax or loose ligaments that connect the pelvis to the vertebrae. (Ligaments attach the bones to the bones).

So what happens is you can get in certain position where you lift something or there is some activity that you do, the ligaments, because they are loose, will allow the bones to move out of position causing inflammation and pain.

You have to strengthen the abdominal muscles. We have at our clinic, a machine that is called MedX which is very specific for getting those muscles right around the vertebrae tightened up and strengthened up and then Prolotherapy is absolutely perfect for that because it grows back these ligaments and when I say grow back I mean it increases the density by about 50% and the tensile strength by 200-400%

Lower Back Pain
Question: I have back pain, lower back pain, diagnosed as a degenerative disc in the 5th lumbar, I am actually going in for another MRI, then I am scheduled to go into pain management with my doctor. I have constant pain.

Low Back Pain
Caller: I have been suffering with lower back pain due to playing football for such a long time. The pain runs from my lower back down into the right side of my leg. Chiropractors worked on me for years but they say that basically there is nothing they can do for me with the discs as compressed as they are.

Dr. Darrow: There are two things that run through my mind immediately when someone has leg pain…

Herniated Discs – Sciatica
Caller: I am having a lot of problems with my lower back L5 (Lumbar 5) disc. Every now and then, and for no reason, I get a tremendous pain in that area, my back freezes up and I can’t do anything or straighten up. I wind up bent over in half, it goes on for several days…

Lumbar Stenosis
CALLER: I am neurologist, I have a lot of patients that have lumbar stenosis with a lot of pain, weakness, and loss of balance. For various reasons, medical problems, they are not good surgical candidates or they do not want surgery…

 

 

NSAIDs
Caller: I suffer from chronic pain from a number of sports injuries, lower back and shoulder, I currently take a number of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), I have tried the ones that are suppose to be strong, but maybe they are bad for you heart. Any suggestions for those of us with these ongoing problems?

Dr. Darrow: In my opinion, the best suggestion is to try to get off the NSAIDs, get to the root of the problem and get that fixed. Have you had any surgeries already?

Caller: I have had three lower back surgeries.

Dr. Darrow: We can examine the low back and see if there is something we can do with Prolotherapy. Do you have any pain down your leg?

Caller: Occasionally down the left leg, but the pain is mostly in the back.

Dr. Darrow: Well that is good news because that sounds like it is “mechanical low back pain,” which means that the ligaments are probably just sprained and you can have hope.

Failed Back Surgery Syndrome
Researchers writing in the medical journal Cirugia y cirujanos examined main causes of failed back surgery syndrome (mistaken diagnoses, transoperative error, technique error, poor application, poor indication).

Rosales-Olivares LM, Miramontes-Martínez V, Alpízar-Aguirre A, Reyes-Sánchez A. (Failed back surgery syndrome.) Cir Cir. 2007 Jan-Feb;75(1):37-41

The reseachers results: “There were 16 females and 4 males with an average age of 53.2 years. Eight patients had 1 prior surgery, 8 patients had 2 prior surgeries, 3 patients had 3 prior surgeries, and 1 patient had 4 prior surgeries. According to the Oswestry preoperative scale, 12 patients had scores higher than 60% and at 2-year follow-up, 11 patients had scores lower than 20%. Despite the persistent symptomatology and complications, in almost all patients the satisfaction index was 100%.

According to the evaluation, the main cause was poor indication in three patients, poor indication + technique error in 10, and technique error in 7 patients.

Conclusions: The most reported initial etiology was lumbar disc hernia with minimally invasive treatment with questionable surgical indication.”

Complicated Disc Problems
What you have been discussing really directly effects my life. I am in my 30′s, and for at least the last three to 4 years I have had significant back pain and recently it has gotten worse and to make that more complicated recently I have had a couple of car accidents that have inflamed my lower back pain. I have been told that I have a herniation, I guess a bulge in my lower back and my concern is I don’t want to have surgery, what I do want to do is have some semblance of a normal life and I love to play golf which is hard to do with lower back pain. When you go and play you wind up with an aching back that practically knocks you off your feet for a couple of days. How can Prolotherapy help?

L3-L4 Herniation
Caller: I have slight herniation between the L3 and L4 vertebrae from playing sports. What is the suggestion for stabilizing the area short of surgery?

Dr. Darrow: What we do is stabilize the vertebrae and the ligaments around them with Prolotherapy so if there is a herniated disc, it doesn’t cause any havoc by rubbing against the nerves that come out the spine and go down the leg.

There are several ways we stabilize the area, one is with MedX back exercise equipment. MedX machines exercise your back by taking your lower body or pelvis out of the picture so when you exercise (which is just a forward extension and a backwards extension), it strengthens the muscle right around the vertebrae, those little paraspinal muscles that are weak in everyone.

The muscles around the L3-L4 area do not have very good strength, with this MedX equipment, we can strengthen up every area of the back. It has a computer hooked up that shows us exactly where your muscles are weak.

Sciatica
Question: I have had back pain for some time, the pain radiates down my legs, I have had three epidurals and cortisone shots but without any relief, where do I go from here?

Iliolumbar Ligament Sprain or Herniated Disc?
Damage to ligaments is estimated to be responsible for up to 70% of all cases of lower back pain. In my clinic, I would estimate these causes to be even higher.