Young Chiropractic Sees Disc Disease in Young People
“You’re young! You do not have to worry about back pain.” Not true! New research confirms young and old alike must deal with disc degeneration. Most of us will personally have to face disc degeneration’s pain at some point in our lives…or take care of a loved one coping with its back pain or neck pain effects. Young Chiropractic is here for young and old alike when Easley disc degeneration disrupts your quality of life.
DDD STARTS EARLIER THAN ONCE THOUGHT
It is hard to believe, but it’s documented in the medical literature. Disc degeneration starts in the late teens! A study of 18-20 year old healthy air force cadets discovered that 77% showed disc degeneration or disc herniation. (1) That’s a new discovery! It’s been written in other studies that disc degeneration begins at age 20. Now it’s found to appear in 18 year olds! In this study MRIs were taken of all cadets. None of the cadets reported spine pain. On MRI, 30% showed at least one disc’s dehydrating, 13% disc narrowing, 49% disc bulging, 18% disc protruding, 8% disc extruding, 13% with spondylolisthesis, and less than 1% even had asymptomatic vertebral fractures. These findings in young, seemingly healthy people are similar to what would be predictable in adults. (1) It is never too early to start paying attention to the spine! Young Chiropractic takes care of spines at all ages via spinal manipulation, nutrition and exercise.
WHY?
Researchers (and parents) ask “why?” Why does lumbar spine disc degeneration or cervical spine disc degeneration start so early? It may be genetic. 80% of patients in a recent study had mutations in their collagen-encoding genes. Collagen is vital to disc and joint health. Lumbar disc herniation patients had two variants in their gene encoding for aggrecan, a protein that the end plate depends on for load-bearing. Such a mutation affects the nucleus pulposus, annulus fibrosus and end plates. (2) Of course, the whole reason about why a disc degenerates is not fully defined yet. Young Chiropractic does have methods to restrain and relieve the pain of a Easley degenerated disc.
INTERRUPTING DISC DEGENERATION, PROMOTING DISC REGENERATION
Researchers described disc degeneration as a cascade of mechanical, biochemical, and structural alterations at the cellular level, cells that are in an abnormal mechanical environment. Regeneration of such cells would require very specific conditions and wouldn’t always be possible. However, traction of 2 to 6 weeks was found to be a responsive time for regeneration of a degenerated disc. The researchers suggest that this could interrupt the above explained cascade of changes. (3) Young Chiropractic uses Cox® Technic to gently create a positive environment for the healing of degenerated discs by enhancing the area of the spinal canal by 28%, increasing the height of the disc by 17%, and decreasing intradiscal pressures to as low as -192mmHg in the low back and dropping pressures in the cervical spine by a mean pressure as much as 1265 mmHg. (4,5) Young Chiropractic enhances the Cox® Technic system of spinal pain management by adding spinal nutrition (particularly disc nutrition supplementation) and exercise to optimize the relief and clinical outcome for Easley back pain patients.
CONTACT Young Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Paxton Schofield on The Back Doctors’ Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson who discussed his care of arthritis and degeneration with Cox® Technic.
Schedule your Easley chiropractic appointment at Young Chiropractic for your spine’s health. You may not be as young as you think for back pain, and you are certainly not too young to look after your spine. A Easley chiropractic treatment plan of spinal manipulation, nutrition and exercise can benefit all ages of back pain and neck pain sufferers due to disc degeneration.
