Question
Hi, I am a 40-year old mother of 3 children (11, 9, 2years), and have been an avid athlete all my life.  For the past 8 years I have been playing competitive tennis, running (i've run a marathon), doing yoga and lifting weights. I slipped on the ice in January, which knocked the wind out of me, but didn't appear to hurt my back, though my entire front body felt extremely bruised for 3 or 4 days.  Several weeks later, after a few weeks of my regular sports routine (tennis 10 hours/week, running 3x/week, yoga 5x/week) I 'pulled' my low back (it became sore after a tennis match, and got worse and worse). The spasms were severe, and I was completely disabled for about 10 days (although I was doing light walking to try to keep things mobile).  Of course I took lots of ibuprofen, and saw a physiotherapist.  After 2 weeks, I began to work out on the elliptical trainer for about 45 mins 4x/week, and walk, then progressed to some light running.  After about a month, I returned to tennis.  My back still felt 'tender', so I was careful not to go crazy.  However, after about 6 weeks (post-initial injury), I started to feel numbness and tingling in the L5 area of my left calf and foot.  It wasn't too painful, just annoying. After another 4 weeks or so it was just beginning to diminish when I was in a car accident, hit from the left rear side.  After 2 days I was in excruciating pain which has not left since.  I am on 1200mg of Neurontin daily, prexige 100mg, and methoxacet (robaxacet) several times a day. Standing up is excruciating, and after about 10 minutes upright I cannot take the pain, and must lie down or sit down. Pain is worst in the morning, and sometimes prevents sleeping at night.  My x-ray showed some stenosis of L5-S1, and L5-S1 attempting to fuse.  I had a ct scan, but have not had results yet.  I have been seeing a physio the whole time, and he basically does some hip flexor stretching, interferential current on the left side of my bum and lower back and traction.  It has not improved the situation at all, really, though it makes it feel better as the treatment happens, any benefit disappears as soon as I stand up.  I am wondering if chiropractic care could help me, or basically anthing I could try, because I am totally desperate.  Any suggestions you have would be much appreciated!

Answer
I can not give you a precise answer without performing my own exam, and it is also difficult without the MRI/CT results, but yes chiropractic can help.  It sounds to me you have one of 2 things, 1)a disc bulge causing nerve irritation, or 2)muscle spasms causing nerve irritation and bony misalignment.  You are not describing any neurologic symptoms, which makes me believe that you have muscle issues.  There are 2 problems with PT, 1)when a bone is out of alignment, the muscles become spastic and until those bones are realigned properly, no amount of PT is going to help fully.  2)when a muscle is stretched, the natural response is to shorten, such as whiplash, quick stretch causes the muscle to spasm, and that is what most PT is doing, it is stretching the muscle which will shorten in response and you are back to the beginning with pain.  I treat a lot of individuals with similar complaints, and I use a technique called PIR (post-isometric relaxation) and it actually give the muscle a new "length" so it is not so short any more.  I do suggest chiropractic, but not all chiropractic is the same.  A lot of chiropractic have you lay on a table and twist you and "pop" something.  I am a member of a group of chiropractors that assess the body and treat the body from head to toe (literally).  We also use a gentle technique that is great for conditions such as yours.  If you are interested, go to www.sorsi.com to locate a doctor near you.  I am in St. Paul, Minnesota and would be happy to see you.  If you have any other questions or concerns, need help interpreting your CT results, or need help locating a doctor, please email me.

Dr. Starbuck