When a patient presents to our office with lower back pain, often times the cause is not an old injury, getting older, or just bad posture; more often than you think the root cause is improper foot mechanics. Foot mechanics is a fancy way of describing what happens to the foot while a person is walking/running, and how that force is either absorbed by the arch in your foot, or other structures in the body.
The knees and hips take their fair share of force, but those areas connect ultimately to the pelvis and lower back. If you think logically, the force of striking the ground has to go somewhere. By carefully evaluating the foot and its arches, astute practitioners can gain valuable insight on less obvious causes of lower back pain.
Unfortunately, more times than not, many health care providers will not take the time to delve into all the factors that cause chronic pain in a patient, which leads the patient to return for more visits, spend more time/money without any lasting relief. What usually happens is a trial of care is performed without results, and then the patient looks elsewhere for relief.
The most common foot issue is pronation, which is when the inside of your foot collapses while loading is taking place on the foot prior to pushing off for the next step. Pronation can be something you are born with, ie flat feet; but more commonly is due to a functional loss of arch support that happens over time. Carrying extra weight, wearing flip flops and other shoes without arch support are common reasons the arch collapses.
It is very common for foot pain to start after a Winter visit to a warm climate, where different shoes are worn. For months during colder weather people wear closed toe shoes with good arch support; then spend a week in flip flops without much support and foot pain ensues. Once they return to wearing more supportive shoes, the pain goes away in most cases. If the foot is under more stress and increased pain occurs, that same stress goes up your lower extremities to your hips and spine. Stress to the foot, good or bad, then spreads to other parts of your body.
At our office during the initial evaluation, we commonly check for foot/arch issues that may be contributing to why chronic pain exists. We also often cast patients for orthotics to correct foot imbalances like pronation, that will get at the root of the issue. Remember, in most cases your back hurts due to a mechanical misalignment somewhere, not because its mad at you!!!!