BYOB: Balancing Your Own Back
It’s been a while Wellness Revolutionaries. I’ve been working on my doctoral thesis and getting in shape for baseball and softball seasons. I know you have been anxiously awaiting my latest submission.
Recently, a friend of mine asked me a “back question” it went something like this: How would you know when the back pain you get should be seen by somebody?
Hmm…What a broad question I thought to myself. The reason it is such a broad question is because there could be just about one MILLION different reasons someone’s back may hurt on a particular day. It’s hard to answer something correctly if I’m unsure of the cause and the behavior of this pain.
Anyhow I asked further and found out his pain problem only came about once every 3-4 months. He reported that the pain lasts for about 24 hours and then it goes away. This to me seemed easy to answer. My reply was that I don’t believe it warrants a visit to a professional .
So when should you seek help?
That being said, I figure some of you may deal with back pain like this from time to time but if it lingers or causes major disability to movement or activities like sitting/standing, please seek immediate attention.
The best way to report it to the physical therapist or health care professional is to take notes and describe the pain as accurately as you can. For example, is it constant, sharp, intermittent? Does the pain always come on when doing a particular movement or activity? Does it cause numbness and tingling in your extremities? Track the pain behavior time of onset while sitting, standing, and/or running. Was there a traumatic accident? What were you doing at that time? Has it happened before? What makes it worse and what makes it better?
I could go into the different combinations of how back pain can occur, however that is what WebMD can do better. However I do have one major WebMD gripe, although it is a great tool to understand yourself better it isn’t necessarily the correct answer. So when you guys stroll in to the clinic, do us a favor and leave your self-diagnosis at the door.
How to Bounce Back?
I know you’re all waiting for the part where I tell you everything you have done to try to treat your own back pain is WRONG! So here we go…
Most people think they have to fix their lower backs by strengthening it because naturally we all believe that if it hurts it must be weak. NOT SO. By doing such activities like back extensions or those horrid seated back machines, seated leg presses, and that weird twisty machine at the gym, you are in fact making things worse. All you’re doing is compressing that precious disc of yours and you keep slamming it together and cause unduly stresses to the rear of your spine. DOH! Overtime you’re going to get it angry enough to cause arthritis! Now why would you do that to yourself?
Your back is hurt because in most cases it is over used. Your posture stinks and you sit too long at the desk. SO STOP IT. Reminds me of the time that Homer Simpson kept hitting himself with the hammer! Why would you do such a thing? Like I’ve mentioned before get up every 30 minutes from your desk to just stretch, stand, take a break. There’s a reason I call most of you desk jockeys.
So NO on strengthening your back you’re just fatiguing a muscle that is already tired and angry with you. In fact achieving the perfect balance for your back comes with good core strength and that doesn’t mean crunches. Planks and abdominal bracing exercises are the best. Stretch your hip flexors as seen on my site and strengthen your hips. Your hips are the foundation that your back rests upon.
On another note, NEVER NEVER rely on aspirin and advil’s to constantly calm the pain down. If it last more than a week go see someone!
I’ve got a great ebook out there called Core Correction 101(link http://www.wellnessrevolution101.com/core_correction_101.html) so you can better educate yourself about the best core exercises in my mind. I talk about common misunderstandings and it’s relation to preventing low back pain. The best exercises are handpicked by me so you can apply it immediately. If you’re not interested in making this small investment, check out a couple of the free stretches and exercises at www.wellnessrevolution101.com/exercise. Also please review the Hamstring Hang-ups article and download the foam roller pamphlet and get yourself a foam roller (also see my products page)
Like I said from above if pain persists, get it checked out by a physical therapist first! We are the foremost specialist in physical rehab. I bet most of you did not know there is such a thing called direct access in most of your states. This means you can visit your nearby physical therapist without a prescription. The economy is flopping and I know you’d like to save when you can so you may be wasting your co-pays at the doctors just to end up seeing one of us! In November 2008, The Washington Post reported the benefitting of going to the PT first and how much individuals saved and how quickly they were to get back to their jobs. Believe me as a physical therapist, we are trained to spot out immediate emergency cases and will send you to the ER or MD when it does not fall into our scope of practice. Save yourself the time and money and long waiting lists…see your physical therapist first.
Be well and have a healthy day,