Low Back Pain Treatment in Columbus, OH

Comprehensive Consultation and Exam

When you walk into our office for the first time, we aren’t just looking to get you in and out the door—we’re looking for answers. Your Day 1 process starts with a deep dive into your health history, lifestyle, and movement patterns. We want to know how long you’ve been dealing with low back pain, what aggravates it, and how it’s limiting your life.

Then, we conduct a series of exams that assess your spine’s alignment, nerve function, and range of motion. If necessary, we take digital X-rays to get a clearer picture of what’s happening beneath the surface. Every test, every question, every scan is designed to give us the most accurate diagnosis possible.

Getting to the root cause of your pain isn’t just important—it’s everything. Too many people waste years treating symptoms instead of fixing the problem. Medications can numb the pain, but they don’t correct the issue. If your results from a misaligned spine, weak muscles, or disc damage, we need to know exactly what’s going on so we can develop the right plan. The sooner we identify the cause, the sooner we can start making real, lasting changes.

Digital X-rays

When it comes to low back pain, we don’t guess. We test. Until Elon Musk invents X-rayy vision, we rely on themost up-to-date digital X-rayy imaging to get a picture of your body’s structure. Unlike other forms of imaging,X-rayss allow us to see misalignments, degeneration, and postural imbalances that could be putting pressure on your nerves. Without them, we’d be working with incomplete information—and in healthcare, incomplete information leads to incomplete results.

X-rays show us what we can’t feel with our hands. They reveal hidden subluxations, arthritis, disc space narrowing, and even past injuries that may still affect you. With this data, we can create a treatment plan tailored specifically to your body’s needs. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach in our office—your care is as unique as your spine.

Customized Chiropractic Care in Columbus, OH

A subluxation is a misalignment of the spine that disrupts normal nerve function, and in the lumbar spine, this can lead to chronic low back pain, stiffness, and even pain radiating down the legs. When a vertebra shifts out of place, it puts unnecessary stress on the surrounding muscles, joints, and nerves. Over time, this can lead to inflammation, decreased mobility, and long-term dysfunction. Ignoring it won’t make it go away—correcting it is the only way forward.
And if you’re going to correct it, you need to create a specific plan to ensure you are moving in the right direction.

Chiropractic should not have a one-size-fits-all approach because no two spines are the same. We always say that some chiropractic is better than no chiropractic, but if you really want to meet the goals you came to a chiropractor for, it makes sense to base those goals on your spine, not someone else’s.

Chiropractic adjustments help restore proper alignment, relieve nerve interference, and allow your body to heal naturally. However, not all chiropractic care is created equal. Many offices take a cookie-cutter approach, giving every patient the same generic adjustments. We’ve heard many complaints about other chiropractors feeling like a factory. We don’t do that here. Your spine, your pain, and your healing process are unique, which is why we tailor every adjustment to your body’s specific needs. This level of customization separates genuine, results-driven care from the quick-fix adjustments you’ll find at many walk-in clinics.

Homecare Exercises

Chiropractic adjustments lay the foundation for healing, but what you do outside the office is just as important. Your body is the product of every trauma, every habit, and every accident that has happened to you up until this moment. Most people have developed bad habits without knowing they are bad habits.

Strengthening the right muscles, improving mobility, and retraining movement patterns are critical for long-term back pain relief. Your muscles play a significant role in spinal stability, and when they’re weak or imbalanced, they can pull your spine out of alignment. The result is more stress on your lower back, more pain, and a higher chance of reinjury.

Subluxations don’t just affect your joints—they also affect the muscles around them. When your spine is out of alignment, some muscles become overactive while others weaken, creating an imbalance that leads to chronic tension and discomfort. That’s why we incorporate specific homecare exercises into your treatment plan. These exercises strengthen weak muscles, improve posture, and maintain spinal alignment between adjustments. The goal isn’t just pain relief—it’s making sure your back stays strong, stable, and pain-free for the long haul.

Bulged Lumbar Discs

A bulged lumbar disc happens when the disc’s outer layer starts to weaken, and the inner gel begins pushing outward. Think of it like an overstuffed burrito. As you eat it, the filling gets pushed out the side because you put pressure on the opposite side. When that happens to a disk, it causes the gel—the middle part—to press against nearby nerves, leading to lower back pain, stiffness, or even numbness and tingling that runs down your leg.

Bulging discs don’t happen overnight. They’re usually the result of years of wear and tear, poor posture, or repetitive stress on the spine. Sometimes, people don’t even feel them until they irritate a nerve. The good news is that a bulged disc can often be corrected before it worsens, but ignoring it can lead to a full-blown herniation, which is much harder to recover from.

Muscle Strain

A muscle strain occurs when muscle fibers become overstretched or torn. It can happen suddenly, such as when lifting something too heavy or moving the wrong way, or it can build up over time from repetitive stress. Strains in the lower back are especially common because those muscles are constantly working to support your spine, stabilize movement, and absorb impact. When muscles are pushed beyond their limit, they respond with tightness, inflammation, and pain.

Muscle strains heal through a combination of rest, movement, and proper care. The body naturally repairs damaged muscle fibers, but if the surrounding area stays tight or weak, the problem can linger. That’s why it’s essential to address a strain the right way—not just by resting but by improving flexibility, strength, and spinal alignment. If a muscle strain keeps returning or doesn’t fully heal, it’s often a sign of a deeper issue, like poor posture, a misaligned spine, or nerve irritation. Treating the symptom without addressing the cause leads to the same cycle of pain and injury.

At Restore Family Chiropractic, we don’t just focus on the strained muscle—we look at why it happened in the first place. Chiropractic adjustments restore balance to the spine, relieving unnecessary tension on overworked muscles. We also incorporate targeted exercises to strengthen weak areas and prevent future injuries. The goal isn’t just to get rid of the pain but to make sure your body moves the way it was designed to so you don’t keep dealing with the same problem over and over again.

Of course, if you have a more significant muscle tear or persistent pain, we may want to schedule a Softwave Discovery session to see if using your body’s own stem cells to heal the area is the right approach. Softwave doesn’t replace chiropractic, but it can sometimes speed up results.

Degenerative Disc Disease

Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD) isn’t a disease—it’s what happens when the spinal discs wear down over time. Your discs act like cushions between the bones in your spine, keeping everything flexible and absorbing shock. But as you age or put repeated stress on your back and those discs lose hydration and elasticity. When that happens, they shrink, become brittle, and lose their ability to do their job. This can lead to pain, stiffness, and increased pressure on the nerves in your spine.

The biggest risk factors for DDD are aging, repetitive stress, poor posture, and past injuries. Sitting all day, lifting incorrectly, or even genetics can speed up the process. As the discs break down, they create instability in the spine, leading to chronic pain, stiffness, and an increased risk of herniated discs or pinched nerves. Some people feel deep, aching pain in their lower back, while others experience shooting pain, numbness, or weakness in their legs.

At Restore Family Chiropractic, we take a proactive approach to degenerative disc disease. While we can’t turn back time, we can slow the degenerative process and help your spine function at its best. Chiropractic adjustments restore proper alignment, reducing unnecessary stress on the discs and preventing further wear and tear. We also focus on strengthening the muscles that support your spine through targeted exercises, improving stability and mobility. The goal isn’t just to relieve pain—it’s to protect your spine, keep you moving, and help you stay active for years to come.

Herniated Lumbar Discs

A herniated lumbar disc occurs when a bulging disc goes to the next level. Instead of just pushing outward like an overstuffed burrito, the disc’s outer layer actually tears, allowing the gel-like center to leak out. When that gel escapes, it creates even more pressure and inflammation around the nerves, leading to intense pain, numbness, or weakness that can travel down the leg.

Herniated discs don’t just cause pain at the site—they interfere with nerve signals, which is why people with them often experience sharp, shooting pain, burning sensations, or even muscle weakness. These injuries can happen suddenly from lifting something the wrong way or build up over time from repetitive stress. The key is to address them before they get worse. A properly structured chiropractic plan can help relieve pressure on the nerves, reduce inflammation, and restore function, keeping you off the surgery table.

Subluxation

A subluxation occurs when a vertebra shifts out of its normal position, creating stress on the joints, muscles, and—most importantly—the nerves. The only reason chiropractors care about the bones on your spine is because of what it protects. Your nervous system the main communication highway between your brain and the rest of your body. When a vertebra is misaligned, it can interfere with that communication, leading to pain, stiffness, muscle imbalances, and even issues with organs and overall function. The body has the innate ability to heal but it can’t do that properly when the nervous system is blocked or irritated.

The effects of a subluxation go far beyond back pain. The nervous system controls everything from movement to digestion to immune function, so a misalignment in the spine can cause problems you wouldn’t even think are related—headaches, poor sleep, low energy, and even digestive issues. Over time, an uncorrected subluxation leads to joint degeneration, muscle compensation patterns, and chronic pain. That’s why it’s critical to address them early before they turn into bigger issues.

At Restore Family Chiropractic, we identify subluxations through a detailed examination that typically includes digital X-rays and a hands-on assessment of spinal movement and function. Once we know exactly where the problem is, we use precise chiropractic adjustments to restore proper alignment. These adjustments relieve pressure on the nerves, improve mobility, and allow your body to function correctly. Many patients immediately feel relief, while others notice gradual improvements in energy, flexibility, and overall well-being as their nervous system resets.