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Archive for the ‘Back Pain’ Category

Is your back hurting? Just a bit? Does your head extend forwards like a tortoise? Just how long have you been sitting at your computer since you last stretched? How long have you spent at your desk today? One hour? Two? Welcome to the modern world! The headache and tension neck pain that never go away are caused by how you sit at your desk – and spending more than eight hours a day hunched over a hot computer screen is taking a terrible toll on the health of all of us.

The ultimate labour-saving device is the computer. We work and play on our computers for prolonged periods, often in artificially lit offices with controlled temperatures. We sit according to how our working environment is set up, which doesn’t always take the human into account. We have become less aware of our bodies and how they work, merely ‘checking in’ when there’s something wrong. Have a look around, notice how many people are sitting with their heads forward at the computer screen, shoulders hunched. This Forward Head Posture becomes a habit very quickly, bringing with it many seemingly unconnected health issues, from a lack of confidence to severe head, neck or back pains.

The human body has always benefited from activity, we are designed to move and to move regularly. Taking regular breaks from your computer and actually walking around and doing something totally different keeps the body functioning and pain-free, and it doesn’t have to be a big change. Basic steps such as moving your neck from side to side relieves tension pain by loosening and stretching the neck muscles as does rotating your. Shoulder exercises also benefit your neck, you must take care as the neck is extremely delicate.

Make it part of your daily routine to take mini stretch breaks throughout your day. Headaches become a thing of the past when you incorporate simple but effective measures for your own well-being. The human body adapts very quickly to good habits as it does to bad, which would you prefer?

Making your own good health a priority can seem difficult as we’ve now become a society where much of what we do is seated and instant. Exercise and fitness on the other hand, is cumulative, how much and how often you exercise determines your ability to enjoy life. Think of it as money in the bank; it builds up.

So why not take control of your health and fitness? A few minor tweaks to your regular routine can make all the difference. You’ll feel fitter and happier – and spend a good deal less time worrying about your health.

Jennifer M Davis is a personal trainer who believes in a commonsense approach to fitness. Finding ways to be active everyday is key to a healthy and balanced lifestyle and doesn’t have to be dramatic or time consuming.

One of the biggest complaints by drivers every year revolves around having to wear their seatbelts while driving. Those who find them too constricting or annoying simply do not understand their importance, nor why they have to wear them under law. Unfortunately that complaint is shared by way too many and because they refuse to use them, hundreds of thousands of drivers wind up with serious injuries from auto accidents, some that they will have to live with the rest of their lives.

Perhaps understanding the spine and how fragile it is, especially while driving, may help change people’s attitude towards the safety devices designed to protect it.

The Fragile Construct

While it is a miracle of nature of how something so small, so fragile in appearance can support the weight of our bodies, let alone preserve movement by it through its network of vertebrae, nerves and discs. Despite its fragile appearance, the spine is one of the strongest parts of our bodies. But even so, it can only take so much punishment before serious damage can occur and understanding the spine and how it is put together might just give you a clue as to why it is so important to your health and life.

The spine consists of vertebrae, tiny bone joints that allow us to bend, twist and move our entire body. Between each vertebra are resilient discs that cushion the vertebrae, and keep them all in place so that nothing goes awry and the framework remains intact. Surrounding and supporting this entire delicate frame are muscles and ligaments that add tensile strength to the structure, as well as nerves that send messages from the brain to create that movement. If any one part of this ever gets damaged, the entire construct can be put into jeopardy and lead to life changing injuries that will sideline even the strongest individual.

Risk During An Auto Accident

When you are driving or even riding as a passenger, the vehicle you are in has a greater mass than your body. Its forward motion will not affect you until it stops and even normal braking can cause your body to shift forward in its seat. If your vehicle is involved in an auto accident, that forward momentum is much greater as the mass of the vehicle propels your body forward violently by the sudden stop. The greater the speed, the greater the momentum and the greater the forces that will wreak havoc on your body as it is involuntarily shifted forward. Safety devices such as seat belts and air bags can arrest some of that momentum and absorb some of the force, but it will still take its toll on your body.

The first part of your body to suffer from that sudden forward motion is often the neck, as your head snaps forward and back against the seat belt or air bag. That force can cause whiplash, which damages the soft tissues that support the neck, as well as damaging the fragile cervical spine area. Being one of the most fragile parts of the spine, damage here can be lasting and cause chronic neck pain until it heals. Too much force can cause paralysis, either through permanent damage or inflammation of the tissues and discs.

Back Injuries

That forward momentum does not end with the neck. An auto accident will propel your body forward, in spite of restraints and after the neck is thrown, the rest of the body will follow. The middle area of the spine is the strongest, leaving the neck and the lower back, the lumbar, as the weakest. Potential injuries include damage to the lumbar spine area, forcing discs out of place, tearing ligaments or straining the muscles throughout that area. All of this can lead to life long pain, especially from a herniated disc or nerve damage.

Understanding the spine and how each part can be affected should give you a better understanding of the importance for those safety devices. The more devices that are in play, the less your forward momentum would be, leaving behind far less life threatening injuries to the spine.

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.