Your mid back, or thoracic spine, is made up of your thoracic vertebrae, typically between T5 and T12. It plays a vital role in connecting your neck and lower back, protecting your organs, and providing support for your upper back. In fact, your ribs attach to your mid back, which makes this area incredibly secure, and which is why we don’t see many disc injuries in this area.
Your spine is 16 times stronger when it has the proper curvature, providing support and flexibility. The natural kyphotic curve in your mid back begins formation in the womb, but is most rapidly developed during adolescence due to bone growth. This development is influenced by posture and can continue to change throughout your life. It provides balance to the curves in your neck and lower back, which allows your spine to act as a spring to absorb the force of gravity and different movements.
Americans are no strangers to back pain. In fact, about 39% of us have experienced back pain in the past three months.
Traditional medicine will treat your mid-back pain in a number of ways:
- Physical therapy, which works with just your muscles and does not produce immediate results
- Medications with adverse, harmful reactions, which only cover up the true issues
- Injections, which have a 50% chance of working, can cause your spinal fluid to leak
- Surgery, which is irreversible and also has only a 50% chance of working
At Priestley Family Chiropractic, we help thousands of patients with mid-back pain using gentle chiropractic adjustments. Chiropractic is a natural, comfortable alternative to traditional medicine, and our patients have fantastic results in not only pain relief, but also correcting the issue at the root cause, eliminating their mid-back pain.
Get A $49 Complete Middle Back Pain Health Screening
A Comprehensive Workup to Address All Health Concerns
How Our Middle Back Pain Care Plan Works
1. Thorough
Exam
We will perform an in-depth consultation, palpate your spine for misalignments, and document your posture. Nerve scans will tell us exactly where pressure on your nervous system is causing muscle tension and affecting organ function. A chiropractor will also do a stress test and, if necessary, take digital x-rays.
2. Receive A
Plan Of Action
The chiropractor will review your test results and have you come back the next day to review their findings. They will give you their best recommendations on where to begin correcting your problem and the most cost effective way to take care of your health challenges. Each body is different and needs individualized care.
3. Get Back
To Living Life
At Priestley Family Chiropractic, each chiropractor believes you should be able to live your life the way you choose, without physical limitations or fears of injury. When your nervous system is functioning at its best you feel better, have more energy, sleep better, concentrate properly, and are an overall better person.
How We Treat Middle Back Pain in Newport Beach, CA
Comprehensive Consultation and Exam
Before we can assess your mid-back pain, we must perform a thorough consultation and neurological exam. The consultation gives our doctors the opportunity to really listen and understand your specific problems and how they affect your life. We can also capture key bits of information about your condition that help us determine the root cause.
In the examination, we will perform a thorough evaluation of your spine and nervous system.
- We palpate your spine for subluxations and check your posture with bilateral scales to see if you are carrying your weight evenly.
- Then, we do nerve scans that tell us where you have pressure on your nerves, causing muscle tension or nerve interference, which affects the proper function of your organs and glands.
- We also assess how stressed your body is in a resting state with a Heart Rate Variability test.
- Depending on those findings, we perform digital X-rays to locate subluxations, determine their duration, and assess the phase of degeneration in your mid-back.
These tests allow us to provide corrective chiropractic care specific to you.
Pain is your body’s signal that something isn’t functioning properly. When we find out what is causing it, we can correct function AND eliminate pain.
Specific Chiropractic Care in Newport Beach, CA
Your spine is composed of five sections:
- Cervical
- Thoracic
- Lumbar
- Sacrum
- Coccyx
With 12 vertebrae, ribs, joints, and nerves, your thoracic spine (mid back) is the largest portion of your spine. The nerves from this area go to your major digestive center, which consists of your gallbladder, liver, stomach, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, and adrenal glands. The lower part of your mid back is vital in your stress response and cortisol production.
Identifying the exact location of nerve interference is critical. There are so many components in your mid back, which is why we do specific nerve and muscle testing in our office to determine where you have a misalignment and how to restore motion.
Custom Therapeutic Exercise Plan
Your muscles work in tandem with your spine by supporting and stabilizing it. The erector spinae muscles in your midback are vital in supporting your spine so you can properly move, lift, twist, and bend.
We must find the balance between stability and mobility. Too much of either can lead to problems with posture and pain. At Priestley Family Chiropractic, we customize an exercise plan for you based on your functional needs. We closely monitor your progress and send you different exercises throughout your care with us. That way, your muscles are strong and stable enough to support your spine and nerves.
Common Causes of Mid-Back Pain in Newport Beach, CA
Posture Problem
Posture is the window to your spinal health. If your muscles are too weak or too tight, it can distort the shape of your spine. Muscles that are weaker in certain areas can’t support your spine properly, causing abnormal curves. Small changes can cause pressure on nerves and your spinal cord, which can cause dysfunction in the nervous system. Usually, a chronic problem develops over time, starting at a young age. When you have the correct posture, you can take deeper breaths and get more blood into your brain. Proper posture is critical for your muscles to work efficiently and put less stress on your bones and joints.
Subluxation
Subluxations interfere with a person’s health. Most informed health professionals know that when the spine is out of position, it puts dangerous stress on the nerves in the spinal cord, which is the intelligence pathway for your entire body. Not only can subluxations cause mid back, neck, and back pain, but they can also affect the proper functioning of the heart, digestive organs, and hormonal controls. It’s not just a sore mid back; it’s the functioning of the entire body itself.
Three general categories could be the cause of a subluxation:
- Physical – a trauma, bad posture, or a car accident
- Emotional – stress, death in the family, sick child, divorce
- Chemical – too much coffee or alcohol, medications, bad air, bad water
All of these things cause spinal misalignment and result in a lower state of health.
Chiropractors are the only healthcare providers trained to locate and correct subluxations. As chiropractors, we first check to see if the vertebrae are in the proper position and then look for proper movement to ensure there are no restrictions.
Chiropractors know that you can’t stretch, massage, drug, or cut a subluxation out.
The only way to correct a subluxation is a specific chiropractic adjustment by a trained chiropractor.
Rib Subluxation
“Popping” a rib out of place is extremely common and can be caused by contact sports like football or even by sleeping in an awkward position. You’ll typically hear a popping or clicking sensation, and even pain when you try to put pressure on that area. Even just taking a deep breath can cause pain when a rib head is out of position. Sudden, jerky movements can exacerbate that pain, such as coughing, laughing, and sneezing. Since your rib is out of place, it can affect nerve impulses and strain surrounding muscles due to inflammation.
The easiest, most gentle way of correcting a rib that’s out of place is with a specific chiropractic adjustment. Medical treatments include injections to mask the pain or surgery to cut out parts that will never grow back. They also recommend physical therapy, which works with the muscles around your ribs but does not change the position of that rib or vertebrae.
As chiropractors, we use a specific, controlled thrust with our hands to guide your rib back into its proper position. This may produce a popping sound, but it shouldn’t be painful. Afterwards, we’ll recommend using ice for 20 minutes on and 40 minutes off, as well as specific exercises to strengthen your muscles that support your ribs and help prevent future issues.
Check Out Our Location Near You
3 Corporate Plaza Dr #200 Newport Beach, CA 92660
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my mid-back pain go away by itself?
It depends on what’s causing your mid-back pain. It could be a muscle strain, subluxation, or poor posture. The best thing to do is get a check-up by a chiropractor so we can determine the true cause of your mid-back pain and what we can do to help.
How can you tell if your spine is out of alignment?
The best way to tell if your spine is out of alignment is to have a thorough evaluation with a doctor. Chiropractors work naturally with your body without the use of medicine or surgery. Instead of masking the problem, we will pinpoint your irritation and gently release pressure to restore nerve flow.
How do you fix chronic mid-back pain?
It’s important to modify your lifestyle by getting more exercise or having better posture. At our office, we are our patients’ health coaches, providing custom therapeutic exercises to accompany your adjustments and advising you on lifestyle changes.
Get A $49 Complete Middle Back Pain Health Screening
A Comprehensive Workup to Address All Health Concerns