What causes Lower Back Pain when you wake up in the morning?

As a chiropractor, I get asked this question a lot, from people in their sixties and also from people in their twenties and thirties. Usually the symptoms are described as severe soreness and stiffness during the night while sleeping and/or when first getting up in the morning. For most people, the lower back pain and discomfort tends to ease up after thirty minutes to an hour after waking up.

So what is happening? Most doctors will just tell you that you have arthritis. While this may be possible, it is not exactly true. Arthritis is not a disease, but rather a process that can happen to a person’s joints, were the movement of the joints slowly decreases over time and allows stiffness and discomfort to set in. So, typically what has happened to someone who experiences pain at night while sleeping or stiffness in the morning upon waking up, is that the joints have stiffened up due to injury, lack of use, or chronic problems. Just like all the other tissues in our body, the joints need a constant supply of fresh nutrients and constant removal of waste products in order to stay healthy.

Unlike muscles, which have a blood supply to bring fresh nutrients in and take away waste products, the joints rely on movement. The movement of our joints acts as sort of a pump that is constantly exchanging fluid with the tissues around them. This allows for the delivery of fresh nutrients that can rejuvenate and repair joints as well as the removal of harmful waste products such as lactic acid. Through either acute injuries or chronic progressive miss-use, our joints tend to lose their normal movement, which allows for joint breakdown to occur, resulting in pain. The pain is usually worse at night or in the morning because a person has been very still for a prolonged period, resulting in more build up of harmful wastes. After moving around, the extra movement helps remove some of the waste and the joints begin to feel better, at least until the next morning.

Getting adjusted by a Chiropractor can help relieve this type of pain and discomfort as well as help restore the normal movement of the joints to prevent further occurrences.

For more information, go to our website www.thefixchiro.com