Category: Back Pain

Back pain — especially lower back pain — is probably the single most common complaint in American society. Some people have genetic factors that make them more inclined toward back pain than others; some have injuries they got in high school or earlier that changed the way they stand or walk that resulted in long-term, low-grade muscle strain. Then there are people whose jobs or home lives demand that they work those muscles — or, in the case of the cubicle jockey, completely fail to work those muscles — every day.

Fortunately, for those last two groups — the over-workers and the under-workers — there are fairly simple solutions.

The Science of Lifting

If you have a job that requires you to lift awkward or heavy loads often, learning how to lift properly is crucial to reducing back pain. Lift with your back straight, your entire body facing the same direction (never lift while twisted), and by providing most of the power with your legs. Align your shoulders, hips, and feet so that the weight of the object is passed directly onto the floor without unnecessary muscular effort.

The Science of Sitting

Ergonomics was huge a decade ago; it was the science of figuring out how to make it most comfortable to sit in the same position for hours on end. Unfortunately, as much as ergonomics tried, the human body isn’t made to sit in the same position for hours on end; it causes enormous strain on the lumbar muscles. The solution is simple: get out of your office chair every 45 minutes and spend just 5 minutes on your feet, moving around.  Even a long-distance truck driver with the world’s most comfortable anti-vibration seat needs a break at least every hour and a half to avoid lower back pain.

While you do sit in your chair, sit in it properly: ears, shoulders, and hips lined up vertically to reduce strain on your spine. If you have a keyboard, your chair should be lined up so that your elbows can be on your armrest while your wrists are on your wristrest. If you’re driving, shift your arms’ positions regularly so that no one set of muscles is constantly picking up the strain.

Every occupation naturally has its own risks, demands, and proper approaches. Talk to your boss about safety and injury reduction at your workplace; most modern jobs have plenty of information about the subject at hand. If you have an office job, consider investing in a back pain relieving office chair. If you do end up injuring your back, pick up a bottle of a powerful, all natural anti-inflammatory and lay off for a day or two to give your back the chance to heal.

Ultimately the best solution is to consult a qualified Neuromuscular Massage Therapist!

Every year, America’s surgeons perform hundreds of thousands of back surgeries — it’s one of the most common surgical operations in the country. Discectomies, laminectomies, spinal fusions — the number of variations on ‘back surgery’ is amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that most of these surgeries are perfectly avoidable if the initial herniated or slipped disc is treated properly and promptly. Unfortunately, ‘proper’ treatment is a rarity in a medical environment where the response to pain is almost always ‘drug it away and rest a while’ and maybe get a little physical therapy. In many if not most of these cases, a trained neuromuscular therapist could have averted the need for surgery altogether.

Patients who have persistent pain or numbness after back surgery are rather tersely described as ‘surgical failures’, and their problems are known as ‘failed back surgery syndrome’. It’s chronic, because once your body is altered by surgery, there’s no way back. Re-operation is complicated at best and has chances of making things significantly worse. For many who attempt re-operation, the final option is to have a device implanted into their spine to quell the pain.

In short, back surgery should be reserved only for cases where a flaw with the spine is causing pressure against a nerve root, and the affected limb is suffering numbness, muscle atrophy, or constant pain as a result.

That’s because, if those aren’t your symptoms, the chances are approaching 100% that you’re able to get a non-surgical cure that doesn’t come with all of the risks of surgery. The vast majority of back pain is caused by musculoskeletal problems — if you’ve injured a muscle, tendon, ligament, joint, or disc in your back and never had a neuromuscular professional examine you, it’s probably still affecting you. Subtle changes in the way you stand, sit, and move due to long-forgotten injuries cause a surprising amount of pain — pain that can’t be corrected by surgery. Heck, for some people, a simple anti-inflammatory supplement can end a startling amount of back pain.

That’s why a neuromuscular therapist is the right person to talk to – they’re able to identify muscle imbalances and postural issues and help you correct them, even if you need special support in accessing and ‘undoing’ certain muscle groups in order to do it. With a combination of trigger point therapy, alignment exercises, and flexibility, strength, and endurance-building, they’re able to guide your body back to its ‘normal’, correct posture and end many if not most cases of chronic low back pain with much less cost than surgery.

The biggest problem that modern medicine has trying to address something as commonplace as back pain is that modern medicine is built from the get-go on the scientific process that involves eliminating variables and narrowing everything down to a single traceable cause. But the human body isn’t the kind of thing you can experiment like that on.  Your whole body works as a unit, and every change you make to one variable affects dozens of other variables down the line.  There’s no such thing as ‘isolating a factor’ when it comes to the human body.

Take back pain, for example: is your pain a sporadic, sharp and shooting pain? That might be because you have a problem with your vertebrae and the bone is pinching a nerve — but it’s more likely that there’s a tight, inflamed muscle that’s injured and the internal swelling is squeezing that nerve. You can cure injured muscle spasms in the back with the help of a trained professional, yet you also must make sure that it has everything it needs (i.e. nutrients, posture awareness) to heal itself.

You can take a high quality, natural anti-inflammatory to help the swelling go down and stop the squeezing on the nerve and help the muscle heal. Most doctors give you a prescription for something stronger than Asprin and send you on your way, giving you exactly nothing to help that muscle get better and ensuring that the pain lasts as long as possible.

There are so many factors that go into a ‘simple’ muscle strain. You need to have a professional assess your:

• Muscles
• Trigger Points
• Ligaments
• Tendons
• Posture and alignment
• Movement
• Any potentially relevant scar tissue

And the kicker is that these affect each other, so if you learn that your posture is off, it may be causing your muscles to overwork and become strained — OR it may be that you have a muscle that’s already strained and your posture is subconsciously adjusting to accommodate the muscle. Just hiding the problem under a typical prescription pain reliever isn’t going to actually fix anything — and in fact it makes fixing the problem in the future that much more difficult.

Instead, follow this five-step system in order to ensure that the muscles in your back and neck are able to heal most effectively. Most back pain is muscular and the result of repeated strains within the back –so these steps heal most peoples’ back pain.

Step 1: Relieve the Muscles and Trigger Points

Quite often, the strain in your muscles either causes or is caused by a muscle or a set of muscles that simply does not relax. Fortunately, every muscle comes equipped with ‘trigger points’ that when released, relaxes the muscle. Even a muscle that cannot be stretched out manually is relaxed with trigger point therapy. In most cases, you need the help of an expert Neuromuscular Therapist like we have on staff, or a do-it-yourself trigger point kit to access the trigger points on your back muscles.

 

Step 2: Fix Your Posture

Once your muscles are done being so “angry” and allow you to stand normally, it’s time to make sure that you’re doing exactly that. Posture alignment exercises help you restore balance to your stance, which minimizes strain on your ligaments, muscles, tendons, and even your internal organs. If you sit at a desk all day, it’s crucial that you have the best chair for bad backs to keep your back and pelvis healthy.

 

Step 3: Restore Flexibility

There’s a significant difference between a relaxed muscle and a flexible muscle. A muscle that helps you stand and walk correctly may very well still be too short and tight to respond effectively to the demands made as you perform everyday tasks like carrying groceries in from your car. During this time, any residual inflammation can be particularly hampering; supplementing with a powerful anti-inflammatory  is a great idea.

 

Step 4: Restore Strength

As your muscles get ‘long’ and able to stretch, it’s time for some functional strength training. You should be almost entirely pain-free by this time before you do any strength training; what we’re doing here isn’t so much solving the old problem as making sure that it doesn’t come back.

 

Step 5: Build Endurance

Continue your flexibility and strength exercises, but add in isometric and other endurance-building exercises. This ensures that even if an extreme demand on your muscles suddenly arises, you’re able to handle it without the pain coming back.

The key to eliminating pain and preventing re-injury is to do steps 1-5 in order.  You must release your trigger points first, since they are the root cause of 80%+ of chronic muscle pain.  You can’t stretch a muscle well unless the trigger points are released first.  Also, when you do strength training too soon, like so often in physical therapy, you run the risk of re-injury and more pain.  Get your trigger points released and then move on to the strengthening later.

If you’re not sure how to accomplish these goals, you want to consult one of our expert Neuromuscular Therapists. With their care and your own focus, you’re able to eliminate the majority of the back pain in your life.