Children are not immune to back pain.  According to a review of the epidemiology of low back pain in children in the British Medical Journal, children on average have a 15% to 26% chance of having back pain.  Similar in adults, childhood back pain varies widely  depending on their age, sex, and socioeconomic status. 
Almost all back pain in children is related to muscle/joint pain and is self-limiting and resolves without complications. There are times though when you should pay close attention to your child's complaints. 

1. Pain For More Than a Month
Prolonged pain is not normal.  Children have an amazing ability to heal fast. If your child hasn't had a re-injury and still has symptoms that are not healing, you should seek care. Conditions, such as a stress fracture, can be the underlying cause. The most common type of spinal stress fracture is called a spondylolysis, an injury to the bone in the back of the spinal column. This injury occurs most often in adolescents who do sports involving repetitive hyperextension (bending backwards) of the spine, such as gymnasts and divers. If the stress fracture occurs on both sides of the spinal column, this can cause instability of the spinal column, or a condition called spondylolisthesis. This condition, also called a spinal "slip," can lead to the vertebral column alignment to shift.
Prolonged pain can also be a sign that there is a more serious injury to the joints or muscles involving damage to these structures.

2. Back Pain with Generalized Illness
Prolonged back pain with flue like symptoms, including fever, loss of appetite, fatigue, and weakness, can be a red flag for infection.   Infection of the spine is a very rare, but is a very serious condition. Infection of the urinary tract can be another reason for back pain and generalized illness as it can mimic back pain and can often be ignored.  Children will also complain of stiffness in the back accompanied with a flu or various viral infections. This pain is self-limiting with the flu symptoms.  If the pain and fever persist you should visit your doctor.

After twenty years of practice I think I have almost heard everything when it comes to people describing how they injured their back and also what they think the diagnosis is.  These include "I threw my back out", "I have a rib out",  or "I slipped a disc".  There is no doubt that when someone says these things that they have a legitimate problem, but often it is not what the person thinks.  This weeks blog will help uncover what really is going on behind these phrases:

Meet the Spine:

The back is made up of the vertebrae, the discs between the vertebrae, the ligaments that hold everything together and then four different layers of muscles.  Throw in a whole bunch of sensory nerves to help the brain to know what is going on and to contract the muscle,  and you have the wonderful structure of the spinal column.
The nervous system controls the movement of the spine by receiving sensory information from  receptors in the muscles, ligaments, and joints.  The brain then relays back a signal to contract the muscles which causes either movement or stabilization.  When you combine millions of signals from the muscles and joints, and then a response back to them from the brain, you have a movement pattern. These movement patterns allow us to do everything from walking to hitting a baseball.  

The Injury Response
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Low back pain will affect 8 out of 10 Canadians at sometime in their lives.  Low back injuries can occur slowly over time, such as prolonged sitting,  or by a trauma, such as a slip and fall.
The small, (first two layers), of muscles of the back can be injured when excess force is placed on them.  This can occur when the larger muscles of the core do not support the load placed on them and extra force is transmitted into the deeper muscles.  This is common  when the back muscles are fatigued and then a heavier lift or an unexpected movement causes the smaller muscles to fail. 
 Another mechanism is if the muscles of the spine can't handle the force put on them and the spinal joints take the brunt of the trauma, casing a sprained joint. Again, in this case the body will naturally tighten up around the area to protect that joint. 
​Often a short term inflammatory response also occurs, causing swelling, pain,  and more muscle guarding. 

Is My Back Out of Place?

When the back is injured, the body always wants to protect itself and does this by shutting down movement in the injured area. This allows the body to save any further damage to injured tissue and to prevent injury to the surrounding nervous system. ​Protective muscle spasms cause the joints to loose movement and then the connective tissues around the joint also loose flexibility causing joint stiffness and pain.  The results of this is that the body recruits other muscles to achieve the movement needed.  This change in muscle recruitment can cause a change in the position of the pelvis, often resulting in a higher side and a change in leg lengths.  It very much feels like your back is out when you are walking like and "S" and you have a leg short leg but it would be more accurate to say my back is "locked up" rather than "out". ​ The body will also unconsciously off load injured joints and discs by causing you to bend out of your normal form. 
Rib pain in the mid back also feels like the rib is sticking up and out of place.  This is because the muscles around the rib head, the part that attaches onto the spine, are inflamed and swollen. When the rib is aggravating the exiting spinal nerve it can cause a deep breath to be painful and for you to compensate with this spasm. 

What Do You Do?​
When your body is responding to injury by tightening up, the best thing to do is to manage the inflammation and then work on getting the area moving. Research shows that range of motion exercises and stretches along with short term use of anti-inflammatory medications help with acute spinal pain.  Chiropractic care is a great modality for getting joints moving and helping muscles relax.  An adjustment to the spine has a direct effect on soft tissues by stretching the ligaments and joint capsules. This frees up restrictions at this level as well as directly effects the tight muscles of the spine.  The smaller muscles of the spine relax in tone when they are quickly stretched with an adjustment.  Overall the adjustment frees up the joint and muscles rather than "putting it back into place". 

Activity Fact:  Low back pain is the leading cause of lost work days and activity limitation (WHO), and is responsible for about 40% of missed work days.

Sports drinks are everywhere.  The bright coloured and well marketed drinks are seen on the benches of most professional  teams and the coaches even get a Gatorade shower after a big win.  The commercials promote better performance and endurance with every sip.  Here is a look at the good and the bad of sports drinks:

 The Good:

Our body looses fluid throughout the day and we need to keep hydrated.  The average intake of fluid for an adult women is 2.7 liters/day and 3.7 liters/day for the average adult male. This of course changes with the amount of activity one is doing and how hot vs cold it is. Everyone has to keep hydrated and when we are perspiring we obviously need more fluids, but we also need electrolytes. Electrolytes are composed of the essential nutrients that we need to keep hydrated, they help our nervous system function, help repair damaged cells,  and to have our body in Ph balance. We normally get these electrolytes from food but when we endure strenuous exercise and sweat them out, we need to supplement these.  Sports drinks are mainly made up water and also include electrolytes (mainly Potassium and Sodium), carbohydrates and sometimes vitamins.  They are essential for athletes who are enduring long periods of exercise that causes a lot of fluid loss.  Sport drinks can also help the body better recover after strenuous exercise. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends drinking 3-8 fluid ounces of water every 15-20 minutes when exercising for less than one hour. When exercising for longer than one hour, they recommend 3-8 fluid ounces of a carbohydrate/electrolyte beverage every 15-20 minutes. They note the need for a sports drink increases with increased duration workouts.
Research shows that sport drinks do help performance and endurance compared to just drinking water when athletes are performing strenuous long duration type exercises. A lot of these studies are performed on professional athletes that compete in endurance type sports like running or cycling. An example of this is Currell,  & Jeukendrup in the Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that when cyclist ingested multiple transportable carbohydrates (found in sports drinks) they where 18% faster in a 120 minute time trial. 

Research shows that the average athlete does not need to use sports drinks.  A good rule of thumb is that a sports drink is a good option if you are doing intense exercise for over an hour.  If you are doing less intense exercises or a short duration of exercise, water is a much better option. Sports drinks are also not appropriate for children to take in most cases unless they are performing at a high level and sweating a lot during their sport. Stay away from caffeinated sports drinks.

Activity fact:- you can easily loose one liter of fluid with an hour of high intensity exercise!

 " I'm going to loose 20 lbs, exercise more, and save more money this year".  " I know I said the same thing last year, but I will for sure do it this year!"
 You are not alone if you didn't fulfill your resolution as only 1 out of 10 people are estimated to actually fulfill their New Year's promises and a third of people will abandon their resolution in the first month.
 Don't let these dismal statistics get you down, you can be that one person in ten! The following tips will help you do that.

Keep it Simple
Everyone would love to have six pack abs, a huge bank account, win citizen of the year award and be a rock star parent.  But, you can't do everything at once. Keep it simple and choose one goal to achieve.  You are much more likely to achieve your goal when you are focusing all of your energy on one thing rather than 7. 

Choose Wisely 
Choose a goal that will have the largest impact.  My favorite is to get active.  Changing your couch time into activity time will have a huge impact on your overall health. Including: mental health, aging, brain function, gut function, weight loss, and overall energy. To quote Warren Buffet: "The best investment to make is in yourself"
Choose a goal that excites you and you have a true urgency to  achieve.  Pick something that is relevant in your life and will have a short and long term impact for you. You must have a "I need to do this" attitude.  A simple tool is to write down why this goal is important and what impact it will have on your life.  Journal about your goal everyday and you will get continual positive feedback to keep you on track.  

Break it Down
Often when setting goals we don't know where to start.  We get overwhelmed and are ready to quit before we begin. One mistake is that we choose too big of a goal that is more achievable by completing a number of smaller goals. Break down these complex larger goals into smaller ones. Daily, weekly, monthly and finally yearly goals within the big goal if needed.  Write these down and have read them often.  There is a sense of accountability when you do this and you can always go back to that piece of paper for motivation. 
Breaking down your goal can also give you a plan. Often people are too focused on achieving the goal and not how to achieve the goal.  It would be like planning to go score a goal in your hockey game but not figuring out how to get to the rink. 

Be SMART
​Set SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound. 
This is a well know strategy for keeping focused on achieving your goal.  Be specific in choosing your goal, measure it along the way to make sure you are headed in the right direction, make sure your goal is attainable and relevant to you, and lastly set a time frame to get it done in. 

Buddy up!
It is always easier to keep focused and motivated if you are accountable to someone else.  Telling someone your goal or achieving a goal together is better than going solo.  Recruit someone that will challenge you when you get off track and will help you along the way. A great idea is to join a gym, like Whitey's Gym, and surround yourself with motivated people. 
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Keep it Going!
Studies show that almost 40% of peoples daily activities are repeated every day.  We are creatures of habit!  Remember: Actions cause habits, habits cause behaviors, and behaviors cause character.  Science shows that it takes time to form a habit. A simple habit, like drinking a glass of water every morning, can take as less as a month to form.  A more complex habit, like quitting smoking, can take up to a year to truly overcome. The key is to stick to it.  According to the book, "The Brain That Changes Itself", the longer you do something the more your brain hardwires the pattern (you fire it and you wire it). 
Don't give up if you miss some time working towards your goal.  This is normal! Everyone is busy and life sometimes gets in the way. It is very normal to have set backs in achieving your goals.  If it would be easy, then everyone would be a nonsmoking, fit, rich, and prosperous person.  Be easy on yourself if you have a setback and keep it going. 
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Treat Yourself!
We all love to get a reward for our achievements.  When you are setting your plan for attaining your goal you must include rewards.  Set various benchmarks along the way and when you achieve them, you get a treat.  Another method is to give yourself an award every time you don't do your bad habit.  A great example of this is when you want to quit smoking.  Put money in a jar every time you don't have a cigarette.  If you smoked a pack a day and you go smoke free for the day, put the value of a pack in a jar.  You will quickly see how much money you're saving and will have a great reward when you get to spend it on something special. I have had a group of ladies, who are my patients, set a resolution to run a half marathon.  They set a reward as a treat to run a half in Vegas, and they did it!  

​Activity Fact: A study polling almost 1,500 Canadians who quit smoking revealed that it took an average of 30 attempts to quit before they succeeded!