acupuncture for back pain

Our Edmonton clinic uses acupuncture with an integrated approach to treat low back pain that creates lasting improvement and not just short-term relief.  Here’s why:

The way we do acupuncture focuses first on resetting and improving the function of the core muscles and sinews.

During the first treatment, our main work is to reduce the sensitivity to pain. This creates the opportunity for the back to start healing in the next step. We also suggest changes the patient can make at home in order to improve the back’s responsiveness, stability and agility.  This is what makes the big difference between coming in every week for pain relief versus becoming pain free in the future!

In the following treatments, we focus on helping the core muscles return to functioning more normally – that is, not to be over-excited and protective or underactive and unused.  In this way, the low back becomes able to provide better stability for both movement and sitting. At the same time, the patient builds habits that promote core strength and stability between sessions (because of the homework we are giving!).

We help each patient understand the reasons and processes involved in causing the lower back pain so that it doesn’t get worse. (Often folks are making it worse through touching toes and doing other stretches that aggravate the pain!)

For the homework between treatments, we educate each patient how to stop aggravating and recreating the back pain by breaking the vicious cycle of back stress, inflammation and reactive muscle spasms. We also teach our patients how to be more aware of and intentional about positive posture and proper movement patterns in everything they do, both in exercising and in all the normal every day moments (like tying your shoes).   Then and only then can the treatments promote and set the stage for continued long term healing and create real core stability and a pain-free lower back.

So the primary problem is not with your back muscles per se.

More often than not, lower back pain is the accumulation of years of functional wear and tear on your vertebral discs and joints at work or play, leading to small accumulations that become bigger issues later.  Over 10% of adults suffer with chronic back pain, and many more suffer back pain at some point in their life.  Well-intentioned people can in fact make their back worse by stretching their back muscles (touching toes) or over training certain muscles in the wrong ways, not finding the right balance of strength and length for the right places.  And there are many myths that perpetuate problems of back pain, especially in our system of medical diagnosis and treatment, and how common treatments may not always offer good solutions for your particular problem.

We look forward to helping you heal your back pain. Book your acupuncture session with back specialist Gord at our Edmonton clinic to make your turning point in low back pain.