The Hips Don’t Lie
If you’ve ever been to the doctor for a sinus infection, they probably prescribed you some antibiotics and sent you on your way to get better. That may fix the bacterial infection, however, that doesn’t look at your body as a whole and the many problems that antibiotics can cause throughout your body, including in your gut. That’s because all the systems of your body are connected. You can’t look at just one small part and expect that to fix the whole.
That’s an important view point to take when it comes to any problems involving the spine. Because the spine supports your body and protects the spinal cord, you have many different systems involved when you find yourself in pain. If you experience spinal pain, it could be because of the skeletal system, the muscular system, or the nervous system. The same argument can be made for something like knee pain. There are many different tissues that make up your knee, and many different joints that influence how the knee functions. You have to look at the entire picture to have a correct diagnosis and treatment plan.
You would probably be surprised at how interconnected the body really is. One perfect example of this is your hips and your back. With many different structures in the pelvic region, it’s not surprising that many different things can go wrong. Sciatica is very common due to the main sciatic nerves that run through the sacrum and down into your legs. Finding sciatica pain relief can be a real challenge. In addition to sciatica, you could find yourself with sacroiliac pain or facet joint syndrome in your pelvis, all of which can mimic sciatica.
When you have lower back pain, your doctor or physical therapist will probably take a good look at your spinal alignment, how you stand, and how you walk. All of these can help to diagnose what is going on with your back. They will probably even measure your legs. Small differences in leg length or any curvature in the spine can lead to the hips being angled in an inopportune direction. And when the hips are off, pain can arise.
There are many things that can cause the hips to be off and many things that the hips can do to actually cause the pain in your back. For example, if you have a knee injury, this could cause you to walk favoring one leg and then cause SI joint pain. On the flipside, the spinal canal in the sacrum could narrow with age and cause pain directly in your pelvis, making it hard to walk. These areas of the body are very closely connected and what happens to one affects the other.
If you have pain in your lower back or hips, it’s important to make sure that you look at your body as a whole and address not just the main cause of the pain, but also any other areas that are directly impacted. If you’re having back pain, let the specialists at the Spine INA in New Jersey help treat you in order to get you feeling your best again!
Leave a Reply