If your back hurts when you lay down flat or on your side, it could be because your back has been forced into lesion, which causes the pain. Vancouver, Wa chiropractor Dr. Troy Dreiling explains further and tells you what you can do to alleviate that pain.
If you have questions, back pain chiropractor Dr. Troy offers a free consultation where he’ll explain everything to you to see if chiropractic is right for you.
Video Transcription
Hey, it’s Dr. Troy here. The Vancouver chiropractor at Zenaptic Chiropractic.
Patients ask me many times, how come it hurts when I lay down? When I sit I’m okay but when I lay down it really hurts, or if I lay on my side it hurts.
Well, one of the things that happen when joints are dysfunctional in the spine, meaning they’re not moving through the proper range of motion, is you’ll take a spine that may have a curve or no curve and you’ll force and move that joint more into lesion which can cause pain. It elicits the pain fibers in the joint capsule.
When you lay down you change the position of the spine you de-load it from gravity, the joints relax and you can actually feel the dysfunction more. That’s one of the common reasons why when people lay down, especially our new patients, when lay down they say it hurts more to lay; that’s because they’re taking a spine that may be like this and they’re moving it into an antigravity position and they become more sensitive and more susceptible to pain.
So what you can do about this is number one get adjusted to help increase the joint function, joint mobility, and nerve flow. Then also, doing some home care exercises, using a softball to help break up the muscle tension or fulcrums or foam rolling. These are great things you can do to help increase your flexibility, your spine so it’s more mobile and you calm down the pain response.
