PainReliefInformation.com

Archive for June, 2011

If you suffer from pain in your back, you are not alone. There are many millions of sufferers throughout the world, and back pain is the second most common complaint to be treated by medical practitioners. Although it may sometimes be mild and cause mere discomfort, pain in one’s back can also be serious enough to disrupt one’s daily activities. The most common form of this problem is pain in the lower back, but pain in the middle and upper back can be equally debilitating.

Preventing back problems

While it is true that many back pain episodes can be resolved relatively quickly, the problem can also persist, causing frustration for both patients and medical practitioners. However, if you are prone to back problems, there are a few things you can do to help alleviate or prevent them.

First of all, it helps if you understand the cause of your pain so that you can seek the proper treatment, or better still, learn how to take action to avoid triggering the pain. Here are some examples of things you can do:

Exercise to keep the muscles which support your back healthy and strong.
Learn how to lift objects in such a way that you do not place unnecessary strain on your back.
Learn and practice good habits of posture, both for sitting and for standing.
Try different sleeping positions to reduce strain on your back.
Make sure that you don’t carry extra weight which places excess strain on your lower back.

What causes back pain?

There are, of course, many different causes of pain in the back, but the most common may be disease or injury to the muscles, bones, and/or nerves of the spine.

Another source of this problem, and one that many people are unaware of, is tension in the muscles of the back, known as myofascial pain. Symptoms of this problem include pain and tenderness over particular areas of the back muscles (trigger points), loss of range of motion in muscle groups related to those areas, and pain radiating out from those areas. These trigger points are a common, yet often unrecognized and easily treatable cause of pain, not only in the back, but in other areas of the body as well.

How can back pain be treated?

Treatment will naturally depend on the condition that is causing your pain, and may include surgery and medication, but there are a number of other possible treatments and alternative therapies for treating it. Some are short-term treatments which bring temporary relief, while others provide you with the self-care tools for managing your symptoms in the long term. Most of these are safe and effective, and are often as successful as more traditional treatments.

If you are interested in investigating some of these alternative therapies, a search of the internet will provide you with a wide range of possibilities ranging from medical practitioners and therapists who specialize in treating back pain to self-help guides which teach you to manage your pain through techniques such as exercise and muscle tension release.

However, whatever you decide to do, it is very important to keep in mind that if you are thinking of treating yourself, you should first seek the advice of a qualified expert, so that you do not end up causing more harm to your back. It is too important for you to take chances with.

As a mild sufferer of lower back pain over the last few years I’ve been trying to find natural cures for back pain rather than relying on medication. Initially when the pain started it was a case of taking pain killers and anti inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen but despite the fact that they worked for a time I found that my body became more resistant and the strength of painkillers that I was taking started to increase.

Over the long-term this is not what I want for my body hence my research and why not share it with the wider community…..my fellow sufferers?

A recent university study has concluded that Yoga could be more effective than the traditional healthcare approach to provide pain relief for long-term lower back pain sufferers. So could this be a possible solution for many of us?

Yoga can be best described as a combination of breathing exercises, physical postures, and meditation and whilst not having roots in traditional medicine it has been practised for more than 5,000 years claiming many beneficial effects.

To be fair, as I read the study it was clear that no firm conclusions could be drawn however it motioned to evidence suggesting that yoga could offer a reduction in chronic lower back pain over and above that offered by conventional back pain treatment.

The main body of the research engaged 313 adults exhibiting symptoms of chronic or recurrent low back pain to either a yoga program or the control standard care regime over a 3 month period. Measurements were then taken a 3, 6 and 12 month time periods and scores assigned using a Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire that generates an “RMDQ score”.

The results showed that the yoga group had better back function at 3, 6, and 12 months than the control group that experienced the traditional approach.

For those of you interested in the statistics they were as follows:-

The adjusted mean RMDQ score was 2.17 points lower in the yoga group at 3 months, 1.48 points lower at 6 months, and 1.57 points lower at 12 months. Both the yoga and control groups had similar pain and general health scores at 3, 6, and 12 months, and the yoga group had higher pain self-efficacy scores at 3 and 6 months although not at 12 months.

There were in a minor number of research participants a negative effect in that two of the 157 control group and 12 of the 156 yoga participants reported adverse events, mostly increased pain.

So what could be concluded specifically? It was reported that a 12-week yoga program provided to adults with chronic or recurrent low back pain led to greater improvements in back function than did more traditional healthcare techniques but that said, there was also a caveat that further research would be required before concrete conclusions could be drawn.

What do I conclude? Well one could argue that the size of the sample was pretty small but I think that there’s sufficient evidence to suggest that Yoga is worth a try. There is a risk that it won’t work for me (or you) and if this is the case then I’ll pull the plug on it.