10 Tips for People With Back Pain That Most People Don't Know

By Kerry Tarvin

Here are a few tips for those suffering with back pain and want some answers:
1- Low back pain is the #1 reason people seek treatment of any kind. If that is true, You should have a chiropractor as part of your health care team. All professional sports teams employ chiropractors as part of their team due to their ability to reduce injury frequency and duration. Even the Olympic teams have chiropractors on staff.
2- Determine if movement ultimately makes you feel better or worse. If you feel better after moving some, even if there is some mild to moderate pain in the beginning, then careful movements should be part of your routine to get better. Keep in mind, if some movements help, it does not mean a lot will be better. DO NOT OVER EXERCISE! The joints of the spine are known as "Synovial Joints" and this means the joints have a synovial secretion that lubricates the joint. Movement helps spread this fluid over the joint. This is a good thing.
3- Rest: There is generally confusion over this tip. If you have hurt your back exercising, lifting weights, at work lifting, gardening or moving furniture, etc... It is a good idea to let the muscle rest from those type activities. Many times injury occurs when muscle have gotten tired and you are lifting with bad posture. So if your a truck driver and your back hurts it will be aggravated by bouncing along in a semi. After a few hours to a day of rest however, you should start testing certain movements like stated above in tip 2. If you rest a sore low back too long you will wind up with a sore low back and a weak low back. Not good!
4- OTC Meds: Over the counter meds usually refer to Aspirin, Advil, Ibuprofen, Naproxen, Alleve, etc... These are known as NSAIDS. They offer a relatively low cost pain reliever. One must realize that these medications are not meant to be taken past 7-10 days. They also disrupt the normal healing process and cause lower quality and weaker scar tissue to be laid down over the injury. This potentially could lead to additional injury in the future. If you have an injury that should be treated and rehabilitated, these medicines may lessen your pain, causing delay in real treatment, until you have a much more significant problem requiring surgery. This, because you ignored the problem, because you were able to numb it up. Be Careful of this. You would never do this with cancer or an infection, why would you do it and potentially damage your nervous system or joints?
5- Exercises and Stretches: General strengthening is almost always good to a "Bad Back". If you have low back pain you should try to stretch your low back, leg muscles and hips. You can look at some stretches I will post but it is also good to go to YouTube and watch a video of how to do certain stretches properly. Muscles commonly involved are piriformis muscles, hamstrings, quadraceps, abdominal weakness, etc...
6- Massage:Generally massage is a good therapy to add to any low back patient. After ruling our contra-indications, massage can usually relieve pain from a mild strain or tightened muscle. Many low back pains are directly related to muscle being in spasm.
7- What type doctor to see? This too can be confusing. You may love your primary care doctor and feel he is the person to see. But most primary care medical doctors have extremely limited formal training with back pain. They see tons of patients with back pain as it is a common reason to see a doctor, but they often prescribe a narcotic, anti-inflamatory or muscle relaxer. This in many cases covers up the problem and fixes nothing. A doctor of Osteopathy may have additional training regarding the back but may also have specialized in a field where he never treats this type problem with anything other than meds. A neurosurgeon and an orthopedist has additional training to treat back and joint related problems. There method of treatment revolves around medication, physical therapy and surgery. They rarely do the physical therapy but make referrals for this to be done. The flaw in this is that they are the doctors with the ability to diagnose and yet they send an order for the physical therapist to follow. The physical therapist cannot diagnose and yet they are the one with all the training in how best to treat with physical therapy. Seems counter-intuitive to me. Chiropractors are licensed physicians in all states and in most countries. Chiropractors specialize in neuro-musculo-skeletal (Back, nerve, joint, muscle related injuries) type injuries. You family practice doctor may see a wide range of complaints from prostate to the common cold. But a chiropractor will specialize in these back related pain syndromes. You may trust your family doctor implicitly, but would you let him give you new prescription for your eyes? Or do back surgery on you, or set your broken arm. The answer would be no, because it is NOT HIS SPECIALTY!! Seek the chiropractor for back and nerves related issues first!

8- Acupuncture: Acupuncture has been proven to help many type of pain syndromes including the most common Low back pain. Acupuncture is scary as a treatment to many because we have all had "NEEDLES" stuck in us by someone giving us a shot or taking blood. Needles used for injections or taking blood are hollow and cut through the skin causing pain. Needles used for acupuncture are solid called fusiform needles and they do not cut the skin. It is rare for them to be painful and they rarely cause bleeding. Any sensation is usually mild and very helpful for pain syndromes.
9- Spinal Decompression: There is an older therapy that has been updated with computers called Spinal Decompression. The old name was traction, but with improvements along the way, it offers comfortable stretching of the low back that can relieve disc problems, sciatica, chronic back pain, sacro-iliac problems etc. I have used spinal decompression in my office for over 15 years and have helped thousands. Some were scheduled for surgery and afterwards were back to the gym working out after cancelling any surgical procedure.
10- Water: Living in Colorado Springs at 6500 feet elevation can dry your body out. I have seen many young people with degenerative disc disease primarily due to dehydration affecting the disc. The disc is made up of 75-80% water. Get dehydrated and your discs cannot handle the normal stresses we put it under. Why are so many people (Young people) having dehydration of the discs? Well in our society we drink a lot of substances but rarely water. Beer, coffee, soft drinks and sweetened drinks tend to dehydrate you. If you want to be healthier in all aspects of life and have a healthier back, stop drinking beer, alcohol, tea, coffee, or any other substance that can dehydrate you more than you drink water. Don't think you are getting water by drinking tea (just because tea has water) as the other stuff in tea causes dehydration.
If your back pain lasts longer than a couple days, do yourself a favor and get it checked out. A chiropractor is the primary doctor who specializes in treating back pain and has the necessary tools to evaluate you completely. Your doctor of chiropractic can adjust any fixation or misalignment of your spine, give you home exercises and keep your back healthy through his expert advice.

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