Acupuncture Clinic San Jose, Specializing in Low Back Pain

 Do a search for “back pain” and you’ll find mostly musculoskeletal descriptions of the cause. Including

• Muscle or ligament strain 
• Bulging or ruptured discs including radiculopathy (pinched nerves) 
• Arthritis including the narrowing of the space where the spinal cord goes called stenosis  
• Osteoporosis is thinning of the bone structure which leads to painful fractures but there are additional causes of back pain that most people don’t consider, and they are so much more common: 
• Digestive problems  
• Adrenal fatigue  
• Kidney stones 

If you’ve had back pain for a very long, you’re probably well versed on the things you can do to improve your condition including good posture, properly toned muscles especially core muscles, stretches for your muscles and tendons, the importance of staying hydrated (both to flush out toxins and keep your tissue hydrated and flexible), and the importance of lifting, bending, and leveraging weight correctly and breathing correctly.  

You may even be aware of how sugar and refined carbohydrates create inflammation in the body and lead to back pain conditions like ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis. So now let me talk briefly about the causes of back pain that most people don’t consider. Digestive Problems Especially when back pain is more focused in the area of the sacroiliac (SI) joints (where the hips connect with the spine) it is often an indication of inflammation in the gut or leaky gut. The way this plays out is like this: The psoas muscle (above left), attaches to the vertebrae in the low back and then crosses over the pubic bone and connects to the inside of the femur.  

It helps us lift our legs to walk. The ileocecal valve (circled above right) is the junction where the small intestine connects with the large intestine. This is a one-way valve allowing the contents of the small intestine to empty into the large intestine, but in cases of stress, the valve gets stuck open and the contents of the large intestine reflux back into the small intestine causing irritation and inflammation. Additionally, the SI joint (circled bottom) sits just below the psoas muscle at the same location as the ileocecal valve.  

So, if the valve is stuck open due to a stress response, fecal material from the large intestine back-flows into the small intestine causing irritation and inflammation, and this irritates the surrounding tissue namely the psoas muscle and the SI joint.  

When it is irritated in this way, the psoas muscle contracts or spasms, and you feel that as pain in your lower back. To address the problem, we have to calm the nervous system (I have an amazing treatment that takes only 3 minutes and can have a profound effect on calming your nervous system), close the ileocecal valve, reduce the inflammation, and relax the muscles to stop the pattern and stop the pain. Once this localized problem has been fixed, we also need to identify the root cause of why this condition happened in the first place. 

 Adrenal Fatigue A lifestyle of constant doing and being “on” with very little “off” time depletes your adrenals. Sympathetic dominance, meaning your fight-or-flight response is stuck, leads to adrenal insufficiency. Sympathetic dominance can be caused by physical or emotional stress, including not enough rest, overwhelm, shock, trauma, and stimulants (caffeine, nicotine, etc.)  

One way to identify when a person is in sympathetic dominance is to assess the function of their craniosacral pump. To test this, sand upright, feet at hip-width apart on the floor, then close your eyes. Now, notice if you stand still, if you sway side to side, or if you sway front to back. The brain, spine, and sacrum are contained in a membrane similar to a long slender balloon, and it’s filled with cerebrospinal fluid. This fluid pumps from the brain to the sacrum every few seconds. If the fluid is flowing smoothly as it should, you should sway front to back when your eyes are closed. When you’re in sympathetic dominance, the fluid is not flowing as smoothly and you sway side to side or not at all.  

Have you ever experienced these symptoms of adrenal insufficiency? 

•  Easily frazzled under pressure  
• Wired and tired feeling  
• Feeling sleepy after drinking coffee  
• Swelling/water retention in fingers, ankles, limbs, face  
• Heart palpitations  
• Difficulty staying asleep  
• Sugar cravings, blood sugar imbalance  
• Restless leg syndrome  
• Unusual fatigue in the morning (more energy after meals and later in the day)  
• Better energy at night when others are winding down (night owl) Another indicator is dull, achy low back pain, especially when it’s centered right over the area of the kidneys. When you look at how close the kidneys and adrenals (highlighted in green) are to the spine, this connection makes sense. This type of back pain is also often accompanied by sore and weak knees.  

To address this issue, in addition to electro-acupuncture, it is most effective to add herbal formulas that support the adrenals. Once the adrenals are supported, you also need to identify the root cause to determine why this situation happened in the first place. Kidney Stones Another cause of back pain is kidney stones.  

The indications include:  

• Pain in the back or flank, typically on one side only  
• Lower abdominal pain  
• Blood in the urine  
• A constant need to urinate  
• Difficult or painful urination  
• Desire to *not* eat meat  
• Stomach ache or lack of appetite  
• Nausea, vomiting  
• Fever chills, or sweating You may also have a metallic taste in the mouth, or an attack of gout may come up.  

If the kidney stones are detected early enough and they are small enough (3mm or less), there are effective stone-dissolving formulas you can take. Apple cider vinegar and lemon water are also helpful and help keep stones from forming again in the future. If the stones are larger than 3mm talk to your doctor about shock wave therapy to break up the stones or surgical removal. 

 If you have severe pain, fever, chills, or sweating, it’s time to head to the ER. After the stones are dissolved, broken up, or surgically removed, you also need to get to the root causes and determine why this situation happened in the first place. 

Staying Healthy Long Term:  

The 7 Root Causes In addition to identifying and addressing the immediate cause of your low back pain, there are 7 Root Causes that systemically influence your health, and if left unaddressed will keep you stuck in a cycle of pain and ill health. Treating only the immediate cause is like pouring water into a leaky bucket. You have to keep pouring water in to keep the bucket full. But when you fix the leaks, the water you pour in keeps the bucket filled.  

I review each of the 7 Root Causes to see which ones play a role in your condition and how to address them so we can relieve your pain, and help you to stay pain-free long term. How Our Bodies Heal To better understand why the 7 Root Causes are important, let’s first take a quick look at how our bodies heal. Chronic disease happens when we lose our ability to make new cells that work. — Dr. Jerry Tennant Our bodies are meant to self-heal. If you’ve ever cut your skin or broken a bone, you’ve witnessed this amazing process. And it takes place throughout the body.  

The lining of the gut is replaced every 3 days, the liver is replaced every 6 weeks, and the nervous system is replaced every 9 months. Healing takes place at the cell level, but we don’t actually heal individual cells. Damaged cells die off and new ones are generated to take their place. Two things are required to generate new cells: the proper vitamins and mineral building blocks, and the proper energy or voltage. When our bodies are working the way they should, cells run at -25 mV, but when we’ve cut our skin, or slammed a toe into a table leg and it’s getting hot and red from the impact, our cells need double the amount of voltage or -50 mV to repair the injured area. Voltage, Electron Flow, and Acupuncture Meridians So where does the voltage come from? Muscles and bones generate piezoelectric currents when they are under pressure from movement and impact.  

Just like we know from physics, if you take a pair of pliers and squeeze and release a crystal, it will generate electricity. The same piezoelectric effect happens with muscles and bone under pressure. This is why at least moderate exercise is such an important part of staying healthy.  

The electrical current generated by the muscles flows through the body’s fascial planes (the meridians of Chinese Medicine). Fascia is a crystalline structure interwoven throughout our bodies found just beneath the skin, it also covers our muscles and nerves, internal organs, and spine. Fascia is an electrically conductive material, so it carries electrons to every organ, muscle, tissue, and cell in our bodies. This is how an acupuncture needle inserted into the skin in the lower leg can have an impact on internal organs or the shoulder. At the cell level, electrons charge the cell membranes, and the phospholipid cell walls act as batteries to store the energy.  

Electrons from the cell membrane flow inside the cell to the mitochondria where they participate in the electron transport chain to increase ATP production or energy within the cell. This electron flow also goes through our teeth which act like circuit breakers and reduce or shut down voltage if there are any dental infections. As I mentioned earlier, we need -25mV for our cells to function properly, and -50mV to generate new cells as old ones die off or to repair our bodies from injury or illness.  

If anything stops or impairs the flow of electrons across the fascia (Chinese acupuncture meridians), then normal function degrades, and healing is reduced. When your voltage is low, you feel tired, your cells are slow to regenerate, internal systems start producing signs of disease, and pain sets in. Acupuncture works to both free the flow of electrons in the body, and by using electrostimulation with acupuncture needles, it works to increase the number of electrons in the body effectively boosting the body’s ability to heal. Now, let’s discuss the things that reduce voltage and keep you stuck in a place of pain and a lower level of health. 

So what exactly are the 7 Root causes?  

Understanding how these 7 factors play a role in all back pain is the key to understanding why your back pain does not get better.  

If you would like more information on how to stop your pain for good, please call Wellness Acupuncture and Herbs today!  

Download the PDF here  

Visit our clinic https://wellnessacuandherbs.com/