Common Misconceptions: 5 Things That Will Not Fix Your Low Back Pain

The first time you experienced lower back pain you probably, like most, ran straight to Dr. Google.

Once you got past all the scary medical terminology, (because Dr. Google always makes you feel like the end is near) you probably found a few home remedies to try to manage your pain.

Here are the 5 most common misconceptions we have seen about fixing lower back pain when patients come to our office:

1. Heat and Ice Help Tissue Heal

GIF of man standing up from a chair grabbing his lower back in pain

When lower back pain begins, one of the most accessible things in our homes is ice or a heating pack. Yet, the research on both treatment methods says that neither have superiority to the other. Generally, both have shown significant improvements in reduction of pain as opposed to over the counter medications.

However, in our clinical experience, patients believe neither heat or ice have been effective as a long-term treatment methods that heal their main complaint of low back pain.

2. Injections Help Tremendously

This is usually your first stop if you are seeing a pain management specialist. Mostly because your insurance is dictating the flow of events with injections. "Try this and if it doesn't work we can do this one next". Doesn't sound very re-assuring, but when your lower back is bothering you just to stay seated anything will do.

Newer evidence shows that more than cortisone injections can do a lot of harm if not managed correctly.

Potential effects of cortisone injections in athletes include delayed recovery from the injury and tissue healing. Other reported effects can include the progression of osteoarthritis, tendon rupture, and atrophy (Kamel et al 2024).

Yes, pain relief is often the goal with these injections, but they do not resolve the root cause of lower back pain, so when you go back to moving around as normal, nothing has changed to effect the injured tissues.

3. Surgical Intervention Is a Guarantee

Most health enthusiasts, active duty military, and even veterans shudder at the thought of spinal surgery. There's months of downtime and a lot of post-operative physical therapy to be had.

The success rate of going under the knife for spinal stenosis was observed in a 2023 study in Norway, using the Oswestry Disability Index to rate change of symptoms. According to the research, 33% of patients were deemed to have been failed by the surgery, 22% were deemed worse than before surgical intervention, and 20% reported being unchanged (Alhaug, Ole Kristian et al, 2023).

That is a HUGE percentile of the study not reporting a benefit to their every day activities.

We often see patients who still have difficulty performing deadlifts, work related labor, or even enjoying time with their loved ones, post surgical intervention.

Team performing surgery

4. All Physical Therapy and Chiropractors are Good

   
   

   Sembach Chiropractic was not built to fit the mold of insurance based care, even by providers with similar titles or the same doctorates.

   
   

   Insurance-based care is often dictated by numbers, not by patient outcome or best benefit. You go into an office, see the doctor for a minute or two before you are passed off to a chiropractic assistant or a physical therapy assistant for the rest of your visit. Your visits often feel like you're just another number on the schedule that day and you get an exercise handout to take home that you lose in your car or in the stack of bills on your kitchen table.

   
   

This is the story of the patients who come to see us, who have seen just about every other kind of provider they can think of to address the same lower back pain they have had for years. They STILL cannot do what they love after trying everything else under the sun. Lack of treatment individuality and attention from the providers leaves a lot of room for failure in function.

5. Youtube Exercises Have All the Answers

   
   

   Google search "exercises for lower back pain" and you'll find a hundred youtube creators with the simple answers to your chronic pain.

   
   

   Except that these videos are really meant to be non-specific, bites of information to gain leads to their business. You are subject to the information overload of video after video providing the "solution to your lower back pain".

   So you try them all and have some relief, but the problem is still there when you go for your next deadlift PR.

   The problem with this is not the exercise, but the lack of specificity to YOU! Lower back pain is not one size fits all and exercise prescription is very dependent on the activity you are most limited by your pain with (at least in our clinic it is).

   
   

We hope that this blog really challenged your thoughts on the treatment of lower back pain relief. As research continues to develop, it is our promise to stay up to date with best clinical practices to treat lower back pain.

If you have tried all of the above, with no significant relief, or you know you can perform better than you currently are at work or in your workouts, take advantage of our free discovery call available on our booking link below.

https://sembachchiropracticpllc.janeapp.com

We'll call you directly and make sure you are a good fit for our method to solving lower back pain for good.

References:

1. Kamel, S. I., Rosas, H. G., & Gorbachova, T. (2024). Local and systemic side effects of corticosteroid injections for musculoskeletal indications. American Journal of Roentgenology, 222(3). https://doi.org/10.2214/ajr.23.30458

2. Alhaug, O. K., Dolatowski, F. C., Solberg, T. K., & Lønne, G. (2023). Predictors for failure after surgery for Lumbar Spinal Stenosis: A prospective observational study. The Spine Journal, 23(2), 261–270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spinee.2022.10.010