By Dr. William Booker, D.C.

ere are several causes for low back pain, but the key to remember is that thegenesis of most back pain is the same, heavy lifting or hard living. e damagecaused by heavy lifting can be the same as the damage caused by the repetitivestress of hours of poor sitting posture. Eventually the result is the same, loss of disc height resulting in lack of joint motion and ultimately pressure to the nervesof the low back, including the sciatic nerve.

ere are 5 common causes of back pain:

BULGING AND HERNIATED DISCS

Discs are the located between each vertebra and provide ﬂexibility and shock absorption for the spine. Picture in your mind a delicious jelly doughnut sittingon your desk, plump with cherry ﬁlling. Now imagine someone accidentally setting a heavy book on top of you delicious jelly doughnut. What happens? e jelly oozes out under the pressure. When a disc ruptures or herniates, the samething happens, except, unlike the jelly doughnut, a herniated disc can be repaired! at´s where Spinal Decompression comes in. Over 90% of the herniated discsoccur in the lower two levels of the lumbar spine, between L4-L5 and L5-S1.

SCIATICA

a. Sciatica is the sensation of pain, tingling, or numbness in the buttocks and/orlegs produced by irritation of the sciatic nerve. e sciatic nerve is formed from agroup of nerves that extend from the spinal cord between the vertebrae and cometogether to form a common nerve, the sciatic nerve. e sciatic nerve descendsinto the buttocks and down each leg to the ankles and the feet. e primary causes of sciatica are herniated, bulging or degenerated discs, which inducepressure on the spinal nerve roots.b. Other causes include small, bony growths on the spine (bone spurs or arthritis), joint dysfunction or compression of the nerves through injury. In rare cases, thesciatic nerve may be irritated by conditions such as piriformis syndrome, tumors,or pregnancy.

Back Pain

What Causes Back Pain?Is it Sciatica A Disc or Arthritis?Do I Need Surgery?

Dr. William Booker D.C.

Dr. William Booker D.C. holds aDoctorate of Chiropractic from theCleveland College of Chiropractic,Los Angeles. He completed hisundergraduate studies at theUniversity of Virginia, where hegraduated with a major inpsychology and a minor in Biology.After completing his internship inPhiladelphia, Dr. Booker relocatedto Arlington to open the ﬁrstCapitol Rehab inside of Gold’sGym. Dr. Booker establishedCapitol Rehab-Arlington as theﬂagship for what would be theeventual opening of eightadditional Capitol Rehabs locatedthroughout Virginia, West Virginiaand Maryland.