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Alternative Medicine Alternative Medicine Basics

Manipulating Your Way Out of Lower Back Pain

Summary & Participants

Patients like Louis swear by chiropractic care for their lower back pain. Find out why.

Medically Reviewed On: August 07, 2008

Webcast Transcript

Louis, Has Low Back Pain: I do telecommunications work, so you're on a ladder, you're in a ceiling, bent or crawling under a desk. And you know, you throw your back out from time to time.

ANNOUNCER: Louis’s work often sends him into tight, awkward spaces. Sometimes it also sends him here, to the chiropractor’s office.

ANNOUNCER: In treatments like this, chiropractors apply controlled, sudden force to joints in the spine that are locked up. The goal is to open up the joint, restoring movement and easing pain.

Michael Minardo, DC, Chiropractor: Spinal alignment and spinal mobility is very important because the spinal column protects the very delicate nervous system that communicates from the brain through the spinal cord and out in between each and every movable vertebrae. What we do is try to manipulate the vertebrae into a normal mechanical range.

ANNOUNCER: According to a survey of research by the national institutes of health, chiropractic care is as effective as conventional care for lower back pain. Studies also show the risk of serious complications for this kind of treatment is low.

Michael Minardo, DC, Chiropractor: The biggest misconception is that chiropractic can hurt you, cause crippling. There are rare, very rare instances and that would be with cervical manipulation or manipulation of the neck that a patient will suffer a stroke.

ANNOUNCER: Some conditions rule out chiropractic treatment.

Michael Minardo, DC, Chiropractor: Tumors. Joint infections, things like that. Fractures. You don't want to be anywhere near that. They're not a candidate for chiropractic treatment and should be referred out immediately.

ANNOUNCER: But for his lower back pain, Louis says nothing works better.

Louis, Has Low Back Pain: It's amazing, but it works. There's no other science to it. It just works. That's all I can tell you.

ANNOUNCER: Thanks for joining us on today’s Once Daily.