Why Chiropractic Should Be Your First Choice for Disc Problems

Dr. Brant Hulsebus, a chiropractor from Rockford, Illinois, discusses the benefits of chiropractic care for lower back disc problems in this episode of Ask the Chiropractor. Backed by scientific research, he emphasizes that chiropractic adjustments are highly effective in treating disc herniations compared to other non-pharmacological interventions. Dr. Hulsebus explains the anatomy of disc herniation, the role of chiropractic in promoting disc health, and debunks common myths about chiropractic care. He also highlights the endorsements from authoritative bodies like the WHO and the North American Spine Society, recommending chiropractic care as the first line of treatment for spinal disc issues.

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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Hello, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here and welcome to another edition of Ask the Chiropractor. Ask The Chiropractor is my little podcast that I do when someone has a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I try to answer. I'm a chiropractor here in Rockford, Illinois. I'm a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic, and I'm happy to be the team chiropractor of the Rockford IceHogs. Let's dive into it. welcome to another edition of ask Chiropractor. Today I'm gonna talk about something that a lot of chiropractors get guilty of, assuming that patients already know, or maybe other healthcare providers already know, but we continuously get surprised again and again by the lack of people who don't seek our care for this condition. What does that condition? Disc problems, lower back disc problems. Particular, A lot of people today still don't know they should go to a chiropractor when they're having a lower bath. Disc issue, lumbar disc issues. C nurse had been taking care of this forever and ever. And just recently, another study came out proving this again, the Frontiers of Medicine, 2025. January 3rd edition. Comparative clinical efficiency of acupuncture combined with manipulation or other non-pharmacological interventions and treatment of a lumbar disc herniation. A perspective multi-arm randomized, open label blinded. Endpoint trial. So what did they do? They went through all the research again, and they looked to see, other than pharmacology, what's the best way to take care of a lower back issue? And again, they found that chiropractic leads the way much better than traction, much better than physical therapy. Now, chiropractic with traction, chiropractic with therapy, chiropractic with acupuncture, these are all things that are awesome. You even increase your eyes of improving. But again, over and over again, you can go to PubMed and find articles. What is PubMed? I've talked about this many times. PubMed is the place where research gets publicized that's universally accepted. Meaning that any one journal can print any one thing, but they get your journal, your research paper. PubMed index means it goes through a tremendous amount of scrutiny to make sure that your research is valid, was done properly. And it's something that you can look at Myself, I don't always see eye to eye with different medical providers. So whenever I walk in, I usually walk in with three or four PubMed articles and we just don't argue 'cause we're not gonna argue with the results of PubMed. So if you were to go into PubMed and type in chiropractic and disc herniations, you just won't believe the amount of studies you find. Now they call this a manipulation. That's the term and research they use for a chiropractic adjustment, but they show that chiropractors are doing the best when it comes to disc herniation. What is a disc herniation? What's going on? Between each one of your bones, you have a disc, your lumbar spine, your cervical spine, and your thoracic spine. The bones of your vertebras, that makes up your entire spinal column, does a disc in between. The disc has a gelatin watery like material in between them. It acts as a shocker absorb. It also allows you to move and bend. If I turn my head to the left, the disc move and rotate with the vertebras allowing me to go. They actually, I leave bulge as I do it. They're designed to bulge. If I lean to the left, all the vertebras in the disc in my neck, all those discs just bulge a little bit. They're designed to bulge. Someone tells you have a disc bulge. That's not a weird thing. A disco designed to bulge left and right. They move and shift so the Vertebras don't have to. And they help increase the loads in the morning. You're taller than you are when you go to bed, because during the day, those discs take a lot of the gravity forces and they actually shrink a little bit. You lay down, you go to sleep, and those discs regenerate and they get bigger. Again, you can always tell the health of someone's spine not be the whole spine, but the individual spine vertebrae is basing the disc in between them. What happens is your disc have no direct blood supply going to the you. If one or two of your bones are subluxated, meaning that they're out of, they're in stress, they're out of alignment, they're not moving the way they're supposed to, the body intelligence locks them up so they can't damage themselves anymore. But now there's no motion between those two bones. What happens then is the blood supply starts to the there is no blood supply. What happens is when you move and twist and bend, the muscles contract and they push nutrients in and outta the joint spaces. If the vertebras are locked up because they're subluxated, then there's no flushing or adding nutrients to the disc space. The result of this, the disc starts to dehydrate and flatten as you lose your disc height. There's a scary term they use for, this is called degenerative disc disease. What it really mean does your disc is slightly dehydrated. What a chiropractor does is they'll detect these subluxations and they'll restore the motion and make them move again. Once they start moving again, they start healing again. How do we do that? We use x-rays mostly we'll pick an x-ray of your spine. We'll see the area that's not moving. Then usually we'll use our fingers to go up and down your spine and feel them move individually upon each other. Lastly, we might do leg checks and other checks, like shoulder checks and stuff like that to see how you line up and how you, what happens when you move and twist. An example at the base of your neck is off at your fifth or sixth. Cervical in your neck is misaligned. When you turn your head, they will not move. Instead, your whole spine will move. So if you're laying in a face down position and you turn your head to the left and there's a subluxation at your C five and C six, they will not move. So your whole back will move and your feet length will dramatically change because your whole spine's moving to compensate for that subluxation. That's what we call a cervical syndrome. That's one of the tests your chiropractor does. That's unique to chiropractic. That's a chiropractic exam. So with all this research going on and all this evidence that chiropractors can go in there and make these adjustments, allow the vertebras to move again, allow the nutrients to get back into the disc space, and if the disc is herniated, why is it herniated? It's herniated because the vertebras are misaligned, putting an unfair stress on it, causing it to bulge out and stay bulge out. But if we can go in there and restore the motion and make the move again, then what happens is the disc will reabsorb itself and go back to normal, and the spike starts to heal. Now, how do we know this happens when a chiropractor doesn't? We've got tons and tons of research in science that shows that it happens. There's no, I believe in chiropractor can help my disc bulge. You don't have to believe in it. We have the research and the science. It's abundant. It's in all the literature, it's everywhere. Matter of fact, that WHO now recommends chiropractic care first for disc problems and issues in your spine, even before medicine or any type of any type of intervention. The North America Spine Center recommends chiropractic above anything else. Number one choice if you have a back problem. The world, the North America Spine Society, who is made up of, was made up of orthopedic doctors, surgeons, medical doctors, and other therapists, not chiropractors, but they're saying chiropractic's the best. So why aren't you hearing more of this? I have no idea. Old stereotypes lies I've been said about my profession for decades and decades and decades. Who knows? Fear not understanding old professors teaching stuff wrong. Take your pick. But if you wanna look at the science and the research, and you wanna look at what's published and you wanna look at and look at the recommendations of the WHO, the North American Spinal Society over and over and over again, it says chiropractic. So if you're having a disc problem in your lower back and you're hesitant to see a chiropractor, my question is why? Why would you be hesitant? We have all the science in the world to prove it works. Chiropractic has next to no side effects, no negative side effects, lots of positive ones, right?'cause we help the nerves where they go and everything they do, not just the back pain, tons and tons of positive ones. Is it because you might have to go again and again? You're gonna have to do that with physical therapy. You're gonna have to do that with going to a gym. So that's a, that's an unwarranted fear. When you go to the chiropractor for your lower back pain, the chiropractor one should be able to use x-rays you've already had as long as they're recent. If not, it takes some new ones. Do the exam on you, tell you what's wrong with you, show you on the x-ray or the findings, what they felt discovered. Then review a cure plan with you with obvious goals, introduce more stuff along the way that you can help you heal. Like the number one way you help a lower back heel is getting up and walking. Moving. I think it's comical that's in a 1926 chiropractic textbook to get up and start moving after you get adjusted. And over the last 10 years now when you have an orthopedic surgery, now they tell you should get up and move around. That's been our textbook since 1926. So to me it's comical that we're a new thing. We're an alternative thing. We've been around for a long time. We haven't changed very much what we do just because it works. We might change the way we detect it and find it, but chiropractic's been around forever. So again, if you're not going to a chiropractor, we have these weird reasons we don't either. When somebody's scared you not to go to the chiropractor, there's no reason to be scared to go to a chiropractor. That's crazy talk. We have the lowest malpractice rates of any healthcare provider'cause we don't hurt people. People don't come here as a typically get injured. The likelihood of getting injured at a chiropractic clinic, you're the least likely to get injured at a chiropractic clinic than you are any other type of healthcare provider. We're the safest healthcare provider. Now, is everything perfect? No one's ever perfect. But how many surgeries have you heard that go bad? You hear about how all the time or infections that happen, stuff like that. They happen all the time. But with chiropractic care, that's very infrequent that somebody ever gets hurt. So we are safe. Next thing. Why don't you go to a chiropractor? Maybe a doctor told you not to go see us, but don't listen to 'em. Don't trust them. They're not chiropractors. They don't know they understood a chiropractic Only chiropractor study chiropractic. So the only person you should trust if you should go see a chiropractor, it's a chiropractor. So get your information from your doctor. Get your X-rays. Go ask a chiropractor whether they can help you or not. They're the only ones that know. So if you've had a disc, bulge disc problem, lower back issue, I'll put a link to this next research paper like I always do. But there's just tons and tons of research papers out there about the benefits of chiropractic care for lower back issues and disc issues. It's just every time I go on the internet. I find more all the colleges are putting out new papers all the time. It's gotten to the point like, could we please research something else?'cause we've researched this to death, but it doesn't really matter because majority of people still aren't seeking in chiropractic care first. So I guess we have to continue, and that's why I decided to do this podcast today to share with you that chiropractic should be your number one choice when you have disc issues in your spine. Number one, but more, even more, number one, especially in your lower back. All right. If you have question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, the only person that you should listen to or talk to is a chiropractor. They're the only ones that know. Never ask your chiropractor questions about your teeth. Never ask podiatrist questions about your hair. Go to the experts, go to the doctors that do those things. Thank you for tuning in. If you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, leave a message or a comment wherever you're listening to this or hearing this, and I'll make sure, maybe next time you'll be the question of the week.