Chronic Back Pain By Dr. James R. Fedich, Chiropractic Physician

New research has show that the pain in your back can also be a pain in your brain.  Research conducted at Northwestern University has discovered that chronic lower back pain can deteriorate brain function.  The study was performed on 42 individuals, half with chronic back pain and half without.  The study found that in patients with six months or longer of low back pain they had lost about 1.3 cubic centimeters of brain matter. 

This much loss of brain matter is equal to the amount lost in ten to twenty years of aging.  The study also found that every year a person has chronic low back pain, they lose the same 1.3 cubic centimeters of brain matter.  This essentially means that for every one year that you have chronic back pain, your brain ages 10 – 20 years.  So, if you have lower back pain for 3 years, which many people have, your brain may have aged 60 years in that time.  This is some very significant research.

 Essentially, that achy low back you have been putting off for years has been slowly destroying your brain.  Dr. A. Vania Apkararian who headed the study states that six months or longer of lower back pain is accompanied by abnormal brain chemistry, indicated by chemical changes in the brain that can affect emotional assessments, decision making, and control social behavior.  Dr. Apkararian further states, “Chronic pain is a state of continuous persistent perception with associated negative affect and stress.”  

 This research supports what chiropractors have been saying for years.  Your body is a highly tuned machine, and when a part of that machinery is not working properly, it disrupts the rest of your system.  If you have nerve compression in your low back, and the impulses from your brain are not allowed to travel freely down the nerves, then of course this will affect your brain.

 Your brain is always monitoring the body, and if it cannot send and receive messages to a part of the body, this interferes with its system.  The nervous system is a highly tuned machine, and just like your car it needs a tune up.  Research has now confirmed that the achy low back that you have not worried about for years is slowly destroying your brain.  Now is as good a time as any to get a check up and make sure that everything is working well.  Nobody ever looks back on life and wishes they had taken worse care of their body.  Take care of yourself now before you regret it later!

This article is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.  This article is not intended to substitute for the advice of a doctor.

“Illnesses hover constantly above us, their seeds blown by the wind, but they do not set in the terrain unless the terrain is ready to receive them.”

-Claude Bernard