How To Treat Back Pain
When you first experience back pain, its important to treat yourself gently. Most back pain is related to muscle strain and will ease within a few days. Take these initial measures to aid recovery:
- Easy does it. Ease up on your activities and refrain from putting extra pressure on your back.
- Chill out, then heat things up. Ice your back for the first 48 hours after the injury makes itself known. The cold initially slows swelling and inflammation while numbing the pain. After 48 hours, however, its important to get blood flowing into the area to promote healing and relax spasms.
- Over-the-counter help. Unless you are taking prescription drugs that would interfere, use an over-the-counter medication to relieve pain and promote healing. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are effective for pain relief and reduction of inflammation, but they are only intended for short-term use. Dont continue to rely on them for more than a week. If NSAIDs arent permitted, try acetaminophen, although be aware of its potential side effects.
- Rub-a-dub-dub. Take advantage of a gentle massage by your partner to help stretch tight ligaments and muscles, which, in turn, may offer some relief.
- Keep moving. Restrict your activities, but dont stop moving altogether. Motion is more effective than bed rest in treating basic back pain.
Massage For Lower Back Pain
Massage has been proven as one of the effective means for alleviating lower back pain. Massage can provide effective pain relief and healing of low back pain caused by strains and tensions of the back muscles. There are two major types of massage used in treatment or reduction of lower back pain. They are:
Quadratus Lumborum Muscle Massage to Relieve Lower Back Pain
This type of massage for lower back pain helps a lot in reduction and elimination of adhesions and contractures habouring in the QL muscles. This state can be caused by repetitive strainious injuries, bending frequently, other traumatic injuries that cause damage to muscles and structures found in the iliolumbar part or the lower back through accident or slip and fall and healing state after traumatic muscle strains.
Gluteus Medius Massage
Request your physiotherapist to give more time in performing these two types of massage. You will experienced a great relief from back pains if performed well.
How Long Does Lower Back Pain Usually Last
Lower back pain can be categorized as acute, subacute or chronic. Acute episodes of lower back pain usually last from a few days to 4 weeks and subacute lower back pain lasts between 4 to 12 weeks. However, according to the National Institutes of Health, about 20 percent of people with acute back pain go on to develop chronic back paindefined as pain that lasts 12 weeks or longer. Even in these cases, there are many different treatment options to help relieve lower back pain symptoms.
When your back is really killing you, you might worry something is seriously wrong. The same goes for back pain that seems unending. The good news is that while back pain is a major inconvenience, it is rarely an urgent medical issue. In fact, most of the time you dont have to treat it. Back pain usually resolves on its own unless you have a major underlying issue.
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Minimal Bed Rest Does Lower Back Pain Go Away
Once the mainstay of treatment for back pain, bed remainder has actually befalled of support. Doctors now understand its better to keep relocating to make sure that your muscle mass do not become stiff. Bed rest can still serve relief from reduced back pain, particularly if your discomfort is so serious that it harms to sit or stand. But attempt to restrict it to a couple of hours each time as well as for no more than 1 or 2 days. Does Lower Back Pain Go Away
When Does Back Pain Go Away On Its Own
Back pain usually goes away on its own. About 90 percent of patients with low back pain will recover within 6 weeks. Many things can cause back pain and some people recover faster than others. The pain may feel either sharp or dull, it can be felt constantly or intermittently, and the pain can range from mild to severe.
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Sleeping Upright Caused Lower Back Pain
Low Back Pain Info Prodcuts Does Chronic Back Pain Go Away What Is The Cause Of Lower Left Side Back Pain Move Certain Way Shoupder Knee Low Back Pain All The Time. Pain In Upper Back On Right Side Causing Pain In Neck Throat Head Breast Area Lower Back Pain Going Into Leg Is Zumba Bad For Lower Back Pain.
Treating Chronic Back Pain: What You Need To Know
chronic back painback painspinal columnKeep all these aligned relies on many factors. Below are four of the biggest factors.
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If Youre Still In Pain Many Months After A Spinal Fusion
The first thing to be aware of is that surgery, especially a spinal fusion, should only be done after all other options are exhausted. If youre contemplating having a spinal fusion, its a good idea to get a second or even third opinion from different surgeons, and also investigate less invasive solutions.
If youve had a spinal fusion already, you may be in the fortunate proportion of people for whom this operation works.
However, if youve had a fusion, and youre still in pain, there are things you can do to alleviate this. If youve had pain for a long time, and want to find out things you can do yourself to get relief.
This is where things can become quite technical. To get educated on your options, heres where to take the next step.
Concerned About Your Back Pain Symptoms We Can Help
Most back pain goes away on its own. But if your back pain has been lingering for more than two weeks without improvement, its been coming and going for some time, or if youre experiencing any alarming symptoms, dont delay the care you need. After all, its much easier to take care of yourself when you can move without pain.
Think PNBC may be right for you? Schedule a consultation.
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What Can Cause Lower Back Pain
Most acute low back pain is mechanical in nature, meaning that there is a disruption in the way the components of the back fit together and move. Some examples of mechanical causes of low back pain include:
Congenital
- Skeletal irregularities such as scoliosis , lordosis , kyphosis , and other congenital anomalies of the spine.
- Spina bifida which involves the incomplete development of the spinal cord and/or its protective covering and can cause problems involving malformation of vertebrae and abnormal sensations and even paralysis.
Injuries
- Sprains , strains , and spasms
- Traumatic Injury such as from playing sports, car accidents, or a fall that can injure tendons, ligaments, or muscle causing the pain, as well as compress the spine and cause discs to rupture or herniate.
Degenerative problems
- Intervertebral disc degeneration which occurs when the usually rubbery discs wear down as a normal process of aging and lose their cushioning ability.
- Spondylosis the general degeneration of the spine associated with normal wear and tear that occurs in the joints, discs, and bones of the spine as people get older.
- Arthritis or other inflammatory disease in the spine, including osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis as well as spondylitis, an inflammation of the vertebrae.
Nerve and spinal cord problems
Non-spine sources
The Big Three Signs That You Should Investigate For An Ominous Cause Of Persistent Low Back Pain
You shouldnt worry about low back pain until three conditions have been met:
The presence of the big three does not confirm that something horrible is going on. It only means that you need to check carefully.
Andy Whitfield as Spartacus
At his physical peak, not long before getting sick. The first sign of his cancer was steadily worsening back pain. He may have already been in pain at this time.
The story of actor Andy Whitfield is a disturbing and educational example of a case that met these conditions for sure the first two, and probably the third as well if we knew the details. Whitfield was the star of the hit TV show Spartacus . The first sign of the cancer that killed him in 2011 was steadily worsening back pain. Its always hard to diagnose a cancer that starts this way, but Whitfield was in the middle of intense physical training to look the part of historys most famous gladiator. Back pain didnt seem unusual at first, and some other symptoms may have been obscured. Weight loss could have even seemed like a training victory at first! It was many long months before he was diagnosed not until the back pain was severe and constant. A scan finally revealed a large tumour pressing against his spine.
Is back pain a symptom of COVID-19?
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Nerve Pain After A Spinal Fusion
There are also risks with the surgery itself because its a highly technical operation. To get access to the disc, you need to pull nerves aside.
What may happen is that the person goes in with back pain and ends up with back pain and nerve pain, because the nerves were stretched or damaged during the operation.
There are also some people who end up with as much pain from the area the surgeon has removed the bone from. What youve done is youve gone with a hammer and chisel and chipped backbone.
I had a patient once who had a problem with her neck. She had the fusion done in her neck and the surgeon took too much bone from her pelvis. This caused her to have a pelvic fracture soon after the operation.
These are some of the risks of the spinal fusion operation, and why its never something to be entered into lightly.
When To Worry About Low Back Pain
And when not to! Whats bark and whats bite? Checklists nd red flags and non-scary possible explanations for alarmingly back pain
The bark of low back pain is usually much worse than its bite. The pain almost always makes it seem worse than it is. Even when its unusually severe and/or constant, it probably isnt dangerous.
MRI and x-ray for low back pain are surprisingly unreliable,1 because things like bulging discs usually arent a big deal,2 most back pain goes away on its own,3 and trigger points are common and can be worrisomely intense but arent dangerous.4 Most patients are much better off when they feel confident about these things. The power of justified, rational confidence is a huge factor in back pain.5 Sadly, many healthcare professionals continue to perpetuate the idea of fragile backs,6 which undermines that valuable confidence.
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Sometimes The Legs Are The Problem
Another cause of mechanical back pain is the fact that our leg muscles can get very tight over time, especially if we do a lot of sitting at home and at work.
A lot of the muscles in the legs originate around the pelvis, which means that they attach themselves to the hip and pelvic bones. This is the case for the buttock muscles and the hamstrings at the back of the thigh.
When these muscles get tight, they pull hard on the pelvis, which can slightly rotate the pelvis into a position that it isnt used to being in. This can then cause pain in your back when you walk, even though the real problem is in your legs.
Will Harlow of HT Physio is Surreys leading long-term back pain specialist. He says: Often, I can help someone to find significant relief from low back pain by focusing solely on treatment of the legs!
If you are worried about your back, quite often there is a simple fix for your problem! You can now book an appointment to see Will at The Wellbeing Space in Farnham to get to the root cause of your back pain.
Symptoms Of Back Pain
Symptom-wise, acute pain and chronic pain can be very similar. Back pain symptoms can include:
- Shooting, burning or aching pain that doesnt go away or returns after using home remedies like icing or over-the-counter medications, or massage or physical therapies
- Regular tightness or stiffness, especially after laying, sitting or standing for long periods
- Trouble sleeping
- Lower extremity weakness
So, how do you tell the difference between acute and chronic back pain?
It can be hard to tell the difference between acute back pain and chronic back pain, but timeframe is the biggest indicator.
The most common symptom of acute back pain is a shooting, burning or aching pain that comes on suddenly. With a little time and at-home remedies such as over-the-counter pain relief medications, cold and heat therapy, acute pain can start going away quickly as soon as two weeks.
But with chronic back pain, your symptoms can come on quickly or build over time, but they last for more than six weeks or are recurrent.
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Exercise For Lower Back Pain
There are a number of exercise therapy you can undertake for faster recovery from lower back pain. But it is important that you inquire from your therapist on which type of exercise to perform depending on your condition. Some exercises are extreme and can cause more harm rather than helping. Let your doctor recommend which ones are good for you. Here are some of the exercise that helps in reducing and treatment of lower back pain.
- Hamstring â This is whereby you pull your legs as you sit or lay on your back, then you straighten them.
- Back Flex â In this exercise for lower back pain you will push your body off the floor as you keep your hips on the floor.
- Hip Flex â In this exercise for lower back pain you keep your abdominal muscle tight and you slowly lean forward until you feel a stretch in your groin and hip.
- Lumbar Arc â here you will lie down, fit your hips until your spine is lined with the floor and your buttock and abdomen muscle tight.
- Half Sit Up â In this type of exercise for lower back pain, sit on the floor, put your legs in rectangular position and your heels in a hip width position and apart on the ground, your tip toes should point up cross your arms on your chest and keep your upper part in a straight posture and leaning a little bit backwards. Then slowly bend backwards and do not roll backwards and also ensure that your head is kept straight and up.
Treating Lower Back Pain: How Much Bed Rest Is Too Much
Back pain is one of the most common reasons why people visit a health care provider. The good news is that the pain often goes away on its own, and people usually recover in a week or two. Many people want to stay in bed when their back hurts. For many years, getting bed rest was the normal advice. But current studies recommend no bed rest at all and stress that staying in bed longer than 48 hours not only wont help but it may, in fact, actually delay your recovery. Heres why:
Staying in bed wont help you get better faster.If youre in terrible pain, lying down for a day to help ease the distress may seem like a good idea, but moderating your activities and staying active in a limited way is a more effective way to control your symptoms. Research suggests that if you can find comfortable positions and keep moving, you may not need bed rest at all.Research shows that:
- Lying down longer than a day or two day isnt helpful for relieving back pain.
- People can recover more quickly without any bed rest.
- The sooner you start moving, even a little bit, or return to activities such as walking, the faster you are likely to improve.
Who needs bed rest?Almost no one! The only people who might require time in bed are those with unstable spinal fractures awaiting surgery.
When should I see a health care provider?You should see your health care provider right away if:
- Heat or ice
- Ultrasound
- Manipulation
Check with your health care provider before starting an exercise program.
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