Lower Back Pain and the Adrenal Gland Connection | Applied Kinesiology Minnesota

Lower Back, Adrenal Glands, And Chronic Pain

Year after year lower back pain is the leading contributor to missed work. Chances are good you will experience it at least once in your life. You may even know somebody who has lost a job or been severely debilitated. Many of the common forms of treatment are surgery, physical therapy, painkillers, and chiropractic spinal adjustments.

But what these procedures are missing, is one of the most common causes of lower back pain…

Adrenal gland stress.

The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys (renals) and are about the size of a walnut. They are responsible for many different hormones in the body, especially adrenaline. But they are also involved in blood sugar regulation, sex hormone production and the balancing of electrolytes such as potassium and sodium.

Under acute stress (lack of sleep, overwork, environmental pollutants, diets high in refined carbohydrates, overheating or overchilling, and emotional and mental stress) the adrenal glands increase their production of hormones as they are working harder to respond to the stress situation. This is beneficial, however, when the stress never ends (which is the norm rather than the exception in our society) the adrenals get tired and can’t perform their functions.

Once they get tired it takes more and more stimulants like caffeine to get you going, which further deplete the adrenals leading to exhaustion. Once they are exhausted, and often before, the adrenals will give you warning signs they are not working correctly.

Here are some of the more common:

Bright lights bother your eyes (constant need for sunglasses)

Tired/sore feet at the end of the day

Shin splints

You get dizzy when you stand up

High blood pressure

Fatigue

Lower back, pelvis and ankle pain

In Applied Kinesiology, it has been found that lower back and knee/ankle stability is dependent on the adrenal glands. When the adrenals start to fail, there is a predictable set of muscles that will also start to fail. Keeping this discussion to the lower back, the muscles that are most important are the gracilis (one of the major groin muscles), and the sartorius (crosses from the outside of the hip to the inside of the knee).

Both of these muscles help hold the pelvis bones forward. Without the stability of the muscles, the sacroiliac joints on the back of the pelvis become strained. Without correcting the adrenal problem, these pelvis bones have no chance of staying where they need to be. No amount of exercise or chiropractic adjustments will help these muscle or bones regain control.

Quite often, these patients need to keep seeing their chiropractor week after week just to feel well enough for the next week. This is very costly and time inefficient. In some cases the adrenals are so incredibly depleted that one chiropractic adjustment is enough of a nervous system stimulation that the patient will be extremely sore or even in worse pain than before.

A holistic view of the body is very important in dealing with a stressed out society. Fix the cause, not the symptoms. And in these cases the symptoms are pelvis and lower back bones that will not stay in their correct position leading to pain.

A healthy diet, nutritional supplements, plenty of sleep, exercise, and controlling emotional stress all lead to strong adrenal glands, which can withstand the rigors of our modern, hectic lifestyle.

Tags: adrenal stress disorder, adrenal stress syndrome