From Chronic Pain to Healing: What Your La Grande Chiropractor Wants You to Know About Recent Discoveries
If you suffer with chronic low back pain, you know how bothersome it can be when treatments only provide transitory relief. While many questions remain unanswered, current research is making progress in explaining disc deterioration and exploring innovative approaches that may lead to more successful treatments. Dr. Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC is keeping close tabs on all of this to help our La Grande back pain patients best.
Understanding Your Disc Health: The Hydration Factor
The discs in your spine function like shock absorbers between your back bones, and they're mostly composed of water-filled substances called proteoglycans. Over time, as these discs lose moisture, they become less effective at protecting your spine from impact, causing pain and additional wear and tear. While staying hydrated won't cure disc problems, it may support your discs' natural function—though we still need more research to clearly establish this relationship. We can talk more at your next La Grande chiropractic visit about ways to hydrate your discs.
Early Promise: Lab-Grown Disc Components
Chopra and his research group (1) have demonstrated progress in manufacturing "biomimetic proteoglycans"—synthetic copies of your disc's essential materials. In laboratory studies, these engineered molecules can mimic some properties of healthy disc tissue. However, these studies are just starting, and it may take time to determine if this treatment will be both safe and effective for people|this research is still in its infancy, and it will likely be some time before we know if this approach can safely and effectively help human patients like our La Grande back pain patients.
Why Decompression Techniques May Help
Exploring Natural Pain Pathways
Some of the most preliminary research by Melrose and colleagues (3) is examining whether compounds from natural sources, including venoms (wow!), could be developed into targeted pain treatments. This work is still in its beginning phases and concentrates on figuring out how pain works rather than developing ready-to-use treatments. It may be many years before we see real-world applications, if any emerge at all. Wow!
What This Means for Your Current Treatment
While these research developments are hopeful, they don't change your immediate treatment options. What they do suggest is:
- Lifestyle factors like hydration and movement patterns may be more important than we previously understood.
- Current treatments your chiropractor uses may have stronger scientific support than before.
- Future treatment options are being researched, though timeline and real-life applicabililty remain uncertain.
- Managing expectations is important—breakthrough treatments take time to develop and prove safe.
The reality is that back pain treatment remains challenging, and while research is advancing our understanding, most of these discoveries take time. Your best approach remains working with your La Grande chiropractor at Dr. Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC who understands current evidence-based treatments like Cox® Technic while staying informed about emerging research.
CONTACT Dr. Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. James Cox, on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes how The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management talks about disc degeneration and the back pain that accompanies it.
