by Eileen Hughes

Created on: April 11, 2009   Last Updated: February 15, 2012

A spinal fracture can occur at any time. It may happen from a fall, a vehicle accident or even by an involuntary motion like coughing or sneezing. Each year thousands of Australians suffer painful spinal fractures as a result of their osteoporosis.

The Spinal column

The spine is a very important and vital part of everyone's body. It is our backbone, and it enables us to stand, sit, and walk. A damaged vertebra can cripple or cause you devastating pain which can affect you for the rest of your life.

An adult spine has approximately 33 bones protecting the spinal cord. It is divided into three sections: the upper, the middle and lower portion of the spine.

What is A spinal fracture?

This happens when the vertebrae collapses or has been damaged or cracked. Bones that break will be painful and may cause swelling or cause the nerves to become pinched between them.

Depending on which section of the vertebra is damaged, pain is felt in various areas of the body. You may suffer from migraines, sore throats, pain in the lumber section, stomach or even the legs.

If not corrected, it often causes more damage because you tend to lean and put more weight in other areas of your body to compensate for the pain, which creates more problems.

Another cause of spinal fractures is a disease called Metastasis. This refers to the possible spreading of cancer cells to different areas of the body.

Various spinal fracture treatments

Balloon kyphoplasty

This is a small, non invasive procedure, to help eliminate your back pain. This can help some patients while the others could have serious complications.

Bone cement

A new test of Vertebroplasty is being conducted. A small needle injects bone cement through the skin into the fractured bone. This helps to stop the pain when bones rub together is used to relieve spinal fracture pain.

If this is found to be successful and safe it may help millions of osteoporosis sufferers all over the world.

Chiropractors: they normally take an x-ray on your first visit to diagnose the problem. Treatment is mainly by hand manipulation, then often massaging various points in your body to stimulate the nerves. Migraines can usually be helped in one visit while more serious realignment could take several.

They can also use a small spring loaded implement; this is good to use for simple realignment cases, or on people unable to relax.

Personal Experience

At twenty-five, my husband was told that if he did not have an operation because of his degenerated disks in his back that he would be in a wheel chair by the time he was forty.

He declined, and with the aid of chiropractors throughout the years, he led a heavy working schedule until he retired last year and is still walking at sixty six years of age.

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