Living with Back Pain
Living with back pain sucks! No one can see that you are suffering most of the time and you can rarely escape it. Whether it affects you when you sit, stand, walk or run it is always a reminder that you can’t enjoy things as you want to.
The trouble in today’s society is that you are bombarded with quick fixes and all kinds of lotions and potions that will help. Unfortunately, most of these are either useless or only give you short term relief. This brings even more frustration and disappointment. Then there are all the medical options that can relieve you of you pain. Medication, injections, nerve blocks, disc operations and fusions. All of which in the right situation can be useful and necessary, However, on many occasions they provide short to medium term relief and you end up with long term back pain anyway.
Back pain is on the rise in western cultures and I’m not going pretend I have the answer to everyone’s back pain or the silver built for one person. However, having worked with many people with back pain that have tried all these quick fixes, I can safely say they are rarely the answer. I have developed a long-term approach for my customers so that they are always proactive in their management of their pain. This means they adapt their lifestyles to stay on top of their back pain rather than being reactive and starting again each time it flares up. This is not the easy way, and it is not the option that many people would choose or stick with. However, it is the only way to be in control and not let your back pain control you.
Now here is the challenge. Making the best lifestyle changes that suit you and that you can stick with. This ranges from spending more time up and moving if you spend all day sitting either at work or home, or reducing the intensity of your general routine if you never get a chance to have a rest.
Regular strength and mobility training will help increase your capacity to take on day to day activities and build your confidence with your spine. This is a key part of our rehabilitation for our customers. We provide guided exercise to ensure you progress gradually without causing more pain.
Lifting awkwardly is often blamed for back pain however it is just the tip of the iceberg. Back pain is likely to be a result of many actions/inactions that you have undertaken throughout your week/month/year. They all build up to the point where one awkward lift sets off your back. We then blame the awkward lift rather than looking at all the other actions that may have created the issue in the first place. Common factors that may be involved in this process include;
- Sitting for long periods
- Work stress
- Performing an intense bout of home improvements, gardening, moving home
- Avoidant behaviour of bending and lifting
- Muscle Weakness throughout the back, core and legs
- And many more
My point is that there are many things you can do to overcome back pain and manage it more effectively and it is rarely being avoidant of bending and lifting that will solve your problems.
What we can do as physios is give you support and education of how to safely build strength, find balance in your lifestyle and be confident that your spine is healthy. If you haven’t already, maybe it’s time to seek help from a positive and proactive physio who will NOT create dependency on medication, hands on treatment and an eventual surgical intervention.
