Low Back Pain

Low back pain is the most common reason Delaware patients miss work. It might be a dull ache that never quite leaves, or a sharp catch when you pick up a laundry basket, a grandchild, or a tote on a warehouse shift near Christiana.

A dull lumbar ache, a sharp catch on a lift, and pain that wraps into a hip are not one diagnosis. Facet joints, discs, sacroiliac joints, hip tightness, and weak endurance each need a different mix of adjusting, spinal decompression, massage, and home work. Computerized range of motion testing gives us a baseline instead of guessing.

Delaware-specific drivers show up every week: sitting on I-95 and Route 1, state-office chairs in Dover, UD library hours, and lifting at plants and fulfillment sites. Newark covers the Christiana corridor. Wilmington covers Brandywine Hundred. Middletown covers the MOT. Smyrna and Camden/Dover cover Kent County.

If pain shoots into a leg, that is a nerve pattern — start with sciatica care rather than a lumbar stretch. If imaging already says herniation or bulge, disc care is the right chapter. If it started after a crash, auto injuries and whiplash are the file. Otherwise start with a lumbar exam at the clinic you can actually attend three times in a bad week.

Red flags — saddle anesthesia, bowel or bladder change, progressive leg weakness, fever with back pain, or trauma — are emergency medicine first, not an adjustment slot.