Dr. James Alan Gafken DC

Recommended Articles

• Can Back Pain Get Diagnosed?

  A major cause of absence in the work place is back pain. The intensity and symptoms of back pain differ greatly. Due to these variations, accurate diagnosis is sometimes difficult to get. However, some spinal diagnosis are direct.Majority of the cases related to back pain do not need medical...

• Can Arthritis Cause Back Pain?

  Yes. Arthritis is one of the major causes of back pain and can cause long-term effects in an individual. Back pain is a common problem which affects 4 out of 5 of us at some point. Back pain is a type of pain experienced mostly through the spine. Back pain can last for a short time, but there are...

• What is Degenerative Disc Disease?

  Degenerative disc disease is characterized by the breakdown of the intervertebral discs — the soft discs that act as shock absorbers and provide flexibility to the spine. This condition is not a disease, but it is a common change that occurs with age. It is a common age-related change in which...

• What Causes Middle Back Pain?

  Middle back pain, also known as upper back pain or thoracic back pain occurs anywhere between the bottom of the neck to the top of the lumbar spine, where the rib cage ends. The ribs are connected to the sternum (a narrow thickened plate in the center of the chest) and then wrap round the...

• What is Sciatic Pain?

  Sciatica is the pain along the sciatic nerve felt from the lower back through the buttocks to the back of the leg. The sciatic nerve is a large nerve in the body that originates from the spinal cord in the lumbar region, and extends to the lower part of the leg. Generally, the pain is felt only on...

• Everything You Need to Know About Disc Herniation

  The spine is comprised of bony vertebrae separated by intervertebral discs. The lumbar spine consists of five vertebrae numbered L1 to L5. These vertebrae are attached to the tail bone (sacrum) at the lower end of the spine.  The spinal cord runs within the vertebrae. The intervertebral discs act...