Back & Neck Pain Treatment in Ontario

Back pain is a very common condition that will affect 80% of us at some point in our lives — but it should not be ignored or considered ‘normal’. Most back pain is an indication of a degenerative process occurring in the spine. If not properly addressed, painful episodes will become more frequent and prolonged as the degeneration progresses over time.

In a normally functioning spine, all 24 bones can do their part to move freely and carry the workload for the weight of the body. In people with back pain, we find that some bones and joints of the spine cannot move in one direction or another. This forces other bones and joints to pick up the slack by moving more, which causes the workload of the spine to become unevenly distributed.

How We Treat Back & Neck Pain

At Northoak Chiropractic, we will typically recommend a course of chiropractic care, based on the results of an electromyographic scan, to treat back and neck pain. This treatment plan is designed to ensure that the workload of the spine stays evenly distributed throughout your life.

Each of us has our own ‘use pattern’, based on the activities we do routinely in our lives, which shows which joints we use more than others. We can see our use pattern with electromyographic scans, such as the one to the right.

A scan showing sources of back and neck pain
An Electromyographic Scan of a Patient with Lower Back Pain.

If our joints that are doing more than their fair share of the work, they will break down and wear out faster than the others, generating pain for us. We can interpret the information in the sample electromyographic scan, using this general guide:

  • Red bars indicate areas working 3x harder than normal.
  • Blue bars indicate areas working 2x as hard as normal.
  • Green bars indicate areas of mild overactivity.
  • White bars indicate areas within the normal range of activity.

How Does Chiropractic Adjustment Help?

Chiropractic adjustments restore movement to the underused or stuck joints of the spine. These functional lesions in the spine are called subluxations. When they can move normally and share the workload, the overworked or injured joints have less work to do and can begin to heal.

Maintaining the proper movement of all the joints of the spine throughout our lives can slow this degenerative process and help us stay active as we age. This is the goal of ongoing chiropractic treatments.

Get treatment for your neck & back pain today.