Why Your Low Back Pain Keeps Coming Back

If your low back pain keeps coming back, you’re not dealing with a new injury — you’re dealing with a problem that was never corrected.

In this episode of Ask the Chiropractor, Dr. Brant Hulsebus explains why back pain often returns after rest, medication, or temporary relief, and what chiropractors in Rockford actually look for when evaluating chronic or recurring low back pain. Learn how joint motion, nerve irritation, and compensation patterns play a role — and why fixing the cause matters more than just covering up symptoms.

If you’re tired of starting over every time your back flares up, this episode will show you a better path forward.

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. hello and thanks for tuning in for another episode today. Our discussion's going to be about why your lower back pain keeps coming back and what US chiropractors here at Hulsebus Rockford are looking for, and what we do about it to help you get better. So we understand this could be a very frustrating thing. A lot of times the first time I meet a patient, they said, , I get this lower back pain. I usually do this and this, and it goes away. This time it feels like it's not going away or. I had those lower back pain. I went , get a cortisone shot. I went into a physical therapist, or maybe even I went to a chiropractor a while back and it went away, but it keeps coming back. Why does it keep coming back? And what can we do to get rid of it? Yeah, and a lot of these people honestly end up having surgery because they don't realize that there's other options within chiropractic that can actually help. So let's dive into it a look a little bit about what we do and how we look at this reoccurring lower back pain and what we can do to make the difference and make it go away., Number one is that we do a lot of physical things and stress to our spine, and we do a lot of physical things to our spine that's not good for our spine all the time. Meaning I sit all the time. I, I don't walk a lot. I don't get my exercise in. I don't try to do any kind of balance or stabilization exercises, but yet when it snows, I want to go out and shovel when it's nice. I don't want to go ride along bike rides, and I don't do a lot of the things I'm supposed to do in order to maintain my spine, to keep it healthy and strong. And as I get older now, the injuries are going up more and more and more because that's a real common thing. And so what do we do with the back, with us when we get this pain, a lot of people just want to do it, like maybe let it rest. Like I said, maybe do some exercises, some old stretches they have, hope it goes away. Maybe take some NSAIDs, some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Even though we know the use of these create chronic lower back pain, the research shows that quite heavily, maybe they get a cortisone shots. But the things that don't change are the joint biomechanics. If, if the misalignment's there, the misalignment's going to stay there. If your posture's bad and your spine's not moving properly, the movement's not there. If the nerve now is being compromised because of the misalignment, that's not going to go away either. And not only that, but you start learning new behaviors because you see your eyes always stay level. So if something else in your back is rotated to the left, something else has to rotate to the right to balance you back off. And none of these over the counter medicines or stretches take care of both of these spots. And so now what happens is you have a little tug of war in your spine with the two different spots. So the body will try to change and adapt to the issues till it can't finally just gives up. And now you have pain. So what do we do when you come to see us? We, a lot of people sit there, say It hurts right here. It hurts right here. And they point right at their SI joint there, sacroiliac joint right up, right in their waistline. A little bit like one or two inches off center. A lot of times I, it's hard for me to explain to somebody that's hurting right there at that time that that might not be the problem. The problem might be coming from above or below twisting and turning and log, jamming that spot. So we try to figure out what forces are making that spot talk to you. It's not always the spot that hurts, , just be my upper back could be twisted to the left. My upper lower back could be twisted to the left, pulling on the hip flexor muscle, lifting my leg up because that one's irritated because it's pulling on it and it lifts the hip and it jams it right into the sacrum of your tailbone. And now your SI joint's all inflamed., I can do cortisone shots on the SI joint. I can stretch the SI joint, I can do all kinds of things in the SI joint, put some, some the biofreeze or whatever you wany yo put on the outside of a tiger ball, whatever you want to do. And I give it temporary relief. But the problem is higher up is still pulling on it, and long as you keep pulling on it, you can't get rid of it. You could even fuse it together. It's still going to be discomfort because what's above pulling on is causing the problem. So as chiropractors, we're looking to see what's moving and what's not moving, what could be causing that spot to hurt. We're also going to dive in and look at your neurology, see what's going on in your nerves. Are there other areas of your body that's affected by it? When your upper lower back goes out, that goes to your small intestines. Are you having bowel issues? Are you having irritable bowel? Are you having other things that could be affecting that as well? So we can dive in more neurologically? Again, not always just trying to look at the one spot or the reoccurring same spot, but trying to figure out why that happens. And then we get to know you a little bit. We try to figure out what you do and what you don't do in order that could be hurting this, and we try to figure out what's going on in your job, your lifestyles that could be causing this., And again, a lot of times people get these muscle spasms because something's in spasm trying to keep you from hitting it. And , they're loaded full of muscle relaxers. I got muscle spasms, so I'm going to take a muscle relaxer. Or maybe it's the inflammation in the joint causing the muscle, the spasm, trying to keep you from getting it more inflamed. And then you take a muscle relaxer, and the muscle relaxer allows this muscle to get loose and now it hits the joint. And when the joint becomes more inflamed than when you're. Medication you take to cover up, the pain goes away. Like you're actually worse, you're more antalgic, you have more issues because we weren't going for the cause of what's going on. So medicine tries to control your symptoms and chiropractic tries to figure out what the mechanical issue that's not allowing you to move properly is in order to irritate your nervous system and your bones and your motion and how. Biomechanics and how it works. So once we figure out the cause of it all, then we'll attack that one and we're going to try to restore that proper motion. We'll talk to you about posture exercises., We'll explain to you about stabilization stuff that you could be doing to make yourself stronger. We'll tell you when you should ice, when you should heat, we'll tell you when you should get off your feet and stop working. And we'll tell you when you should come in and keep coming back to see us. It's,, if a door , is all. Rusted, , and you just put a little oil on it for one day, it's going to fix it. But fixing the hinge long term gets rid of the squeak, not just competing oil on it, not just keeping medications that cover up the symptoms. Right? And so if it comes back every month, it comes back. Whenever I do this activity and whenever I go to lift up, it starts happening over and over again. These are such cool things for us to find out about you in order to help you get better and do more well. But we have to be able to figure this whole picture out, this whole image out. So let me describe to you what happens when you come to my office with this going on. I've had lower back pain on and off most of my life right now. It's fed up really bad and it doesn't seem like it's getting better. I'm tired of trying over the counter medications. They don't seem to be cutting it. I've had a cortisone shot and now I'm here at the chiropractor asking for help. What should you expect when you walk in my door?, One, we're going to take a complete history of you. We're going to get to know your whole medical history because that helps us get to know you better. because in Illinois, I'm a primary licensed healthcare provider, just like your family doctor is. Same licensure. So I'm going to do get you all your information, all, everything we can gather about your previous history to maybe some of the reasons why you ended up in the state. Number two, we're going to do a chiropractic exam on you. We're going to ask you to lift your legs, bend your leg here, lift this, twist this. We want to see biomechanically, how you're moving and not moving. Where's the limitation? Where's the thing that's stopping this thing that's created a whole cycle of limitations and problems within your spine. We might do a neurological exam. We might get a reflex hammer and check your reflexes if they're still a little bit curious what's going on. We're still a little bit, if we haven't narrowed it down. We will do an x-ray exam. We literally want to see what's going on. We'll have you stand up. We'll take x-rays of your spine and see what's going on. Now, if you've had x-rays somewhere else, you can bring those in as long as they're recent and the longer they're of your spine. I can't believe how many people are bringing an x-ray of their knee when they tell me they're having back issues. I actually have to look at your spine to know what's going on of your. And we had to have them standing up x-rays and they can't be three years old. because that's something that happened three years ago and that was happening right now. So we're able to put this all together., We take your chiropractic exam, your medical history, neurological exam, , posture exams, and your x-rays. Then we're able to complete a complete picture of you in order what we can do to help you get better and put a package together. We'll take care of you for a day. To have you come back in a couple days, see how you did then based on how you respond, we'll come up with a care plan and give it to you. Now, what's our long term goal? Someone says, , what's the difference between. You are going to the chiropractor once a month or having reoccurring back pain?, One, going to the chiropractor once a month doesn't cause you to miss a day of work. Doesn't cause aches and pains. It doesn't limit your day. But two, , coming in once a month is optional., That's not something that's required., Coming in once a month, once every six weeks, once every two weeks. That's just an, a chiropractor's opinion of what it takes to deal with the stress that you put at your back., For an example, if I'm going to go out and play basketball every day or like I take care of the ice hawks, right? The hockey team, can I just adjust them once and they should be good for the rest of the season? Probably not, right? because they're going to go out and play hockey again the next day and get hit again. So if you have a job that requires you to sit too much, if you have a Jo pressure to walk too much , or you just have activities that irritate your spine, can we just eliminate all those jobs in those positions? Probably not, but we are able to tell you how to do them smarter, how to work smarter, how to do things better, and then how to strengthen these areas during that time. A lot of times, some people might come in once every two weeks to maintain it. But as they build up their stability, as they posture improves so we can start going longer and longer and longer. That's what we look for. That's what we strive for. For you, it's how they make you better. Now, if you're somebody who says, I'm not going to do those exercises and those stretches, I just want you to take care of me and that's what we're going to do. Or if you're someone that says, , I'm going to wait for my back to flare up and I'm going to come back again. Now you're going to fall into that hole. I keep having reoccurring lower back pain because you're not doing the things that maintain and help it. Even though we are able to go in and make a deeper dive and. Bigger success and eliminate more of the causes of the lower back pain compared to just taking a non-steroid or anti-inflammatory drug or just putting , a lotion on your back to numb it or icing it or getting a shot. You still have to do the work that's required to maintain that. because you're going to go back to doing the things that you were doing before, right? Isn't it? Somebody said you going back and doing the same things, expecting different results. There's a term for that. So we want to teach you how to do things differently and better, but there's still times people do come in and get checked. So that's a little bit about how we handle these long term things. When I first started practice, I have a lot of older people that would come in and say, just fix it once and let me be done. I tried the same thing with my dentist. I said, just clean these teeth once. I don't want to have to keep coming back. And of course, the older we get, the smarter we get, the more we realize that's not how life works. Just like I can't go to my primary one time and say, Hey. You're seeing me today give me everything I need until I never get sick or have disease again. I never want to have to come back again. These things just some practical, and it's a silly request, so there's how chiropractic would handle. That's what we would handle here in Rockford, Illinois. So if you have any questions about what I went over or what I reviewed or how we would do this, or if you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, remember there's only one qualified person that can answer those questions, and that's a chiropractor. We're the only ones that study it. That was the last night I was at the IceHogs game with an ER doctor, a family physician, a generalist surgeon, and an orthopedic doctor. And somebody had a question about chiropractic. They came to us and those guys couldn't answer because they're not chiropractors. They looked at me for the answer. Because what I do, just like if you asked me about shoulder surgery, I'm going to point the orthopedic doctor. because that's what he does. All right, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you again next week.