If you have never experienced back pain, odds are one day you will. The big question is, HOW ACTIVE DO YOU WANT TO BE? What if your back pain stays roughly the same, where do you see yourself ten years from now? For most people, a completely sedentary lifestyle spent sitting on the couch with a remote control in hand is not a reasonable alternative. For motivated patients wanting to get their life back again, there are several pathways to achieving a higher level of function with less pain. Here at Sonoran Spine, we have experience and expertise in spine. In fact, it is all we do.

A Wellness Approach

For some patients, a wellness approach with primary focus on healthy lifestyle, proper diet and nutrition, and a daily exercise program is ideal. Many people seek out treatment from nontraditional sources such as chiropractic and acupuncture. These can be helpful at treating specific and nonspecific causes for pain in many patients. We have also seen significant improvements in baseline pain for patients who regularly participate in yoga. Pilates and other similar exercise programs have also been helpful in many of our patients.

Conservative Options

For other patients, focused and supervised physical therapy from a quality spine physical therapist is the best way forward. For these patients, often the wellness approach has been tried and the expertise of a spine focused physical therapist can be invaluable. Antiinflammatory medications and a daily exercise program added to the work of the physical therapist is often all that is needed to feel better or at least live with back pain.

Should Surgery Be Considered?

When back and neck pain become problematic, it is imperative that a specific diagnosis be obtained so that treatment can be focused at treating the specific diagnosis. Patients with nerve root compression caused from a disc herniation are very different than patients with nerve root compression caused from degenerative spinal stenosis. Both of these groups can be helped with therapy, and often an epidural steroid injection.

If your diagnosis includes a spinal instability secondary to arthritis, a slipped vertebra, fractured vertebra or other conditions that causes activity-related back pain, you may require some type of surgery to stabilize the part of your back that is affected. If this is required, we have long-term data that shows 85 to 90% of our patients return to a high level of functionality. Patients with spinal curvature, patients who are stooped or bent over, or patients with congenital or developmental spinal deformity can be dramatically helped through surgical correction of the deformity and stabilization of the spine restoring a new and improved posture.

Getting Your Life Back

So, the question remains, how active do you want to be? Where do you see yourself in ten years? If your pain is bothersome enough, you deserve a clear diagnosis, a treatment program tailored to your particular problem, and the optimal chance for improvement with expert therapy and treatment. We have high expertise for treatment of spinal disease, whether in the arena of wellness, acupuncture and yoga, formal physical therapy, medication and a home exercise program, or surgical correction of problems that will not respond to anything else. Our long term research has been presented at national and internal meetings and published in major spine journals. Our work is presented to spine specialists worldwide along with our research data shows that excellent outcomes are achievable in most patients with most conditions, when the diagnosis is correctly made and treatment is correctly applied. There are many solutions for back pain, depending on the underlying cause. Our goal is to analyze your particular problem and help you find the solution to a higher level of function and less pain for a happier and more productive future.