Are you frustrated with the shooting pain in your back? Are you looking for some effective treatments and care tips to obtain some relief from back pain? If you nodded along with hope, worry no more. Read on to learn about all effective tips, treatments, and care techniques to follow for mitigating your back pain effectively.
7 Crucial Tips To Follow For Alleviating Back Pain:
1. Maintain Good Posture:
Poor or improper posture is one of the prominent causes of your back pain. So, you need to improve your posture. Make it a habit to stand up straight with your shoulders over the hips joints, ears over the shoulders, and hip joints coming over the ankles. Ensure you do not round your shoulders, bend sideways while you are standing, and slouch. Choose to sit in a chair that is meant to maintain your back straight.
2. Lift Appropriately:
Avoid lifting heavy objects in a haphazard manner. Bend at your knees, hold the heavy object close to you, and then pick it up. Make sure you do not twist your body while you are picking up a heavy item.
3. Do Stretching Exercises:
Performing stretching exercises regularly helps you maintain a flexible body and keep back pain at bay. Also, stretching is highly effective in alleviating back pain and promoting recovery from a back injury. Ensure you stretch before lifting heavy objects and before bending back, side to side, and forward. Try yoga poses.
4. Keep A Check On Your Weight Gain:
Maintaining a healthy weight is highly beneficial for avoiding frustrating back pain. Excess of weight gain can stress your back and make it pain. So, you need to keep an eye on your weight and take the right steps to avoid excess weight gain. Follow healthy diet habits by opting for fresh vegetables and fruits and by avoiding junk, processed, and oily fried foods.
5. Wear Proper, Good Shoes:
You can prevent back pain by wearing low-heeled, comfortable shoes. Choose to wear such shoes that minimize the strain on your back when you are standing. Wearing shoes comprising lesser than one inch heel is beneficial for alleviating your back pain.
6. Work Your Core:
Following a strength-training workout that acts on your core muscles on a regular basis can help minimize the risk of back injuries, such as muscle spasms and strains. Performing some abdominal and back strengthening workouts at least twice every week will help you keep back pain at bay and have a flexible and strong back.
7. Follow Stress Relief Techniques:
Stress is one of the major factors that can worsen your back pain substantially. So, practice some stress relief techniques, such as yoga, meditations, and pranayama. Take time out of your busy schedule and enjoy the life.
Effective Treatments For Back Pain
1. Electrothermal Therapy & TENS:
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation therapy i.e. TENS is one of the most common types of electrical therapy treatment recommended to minimize back pain and experience short-term relief. Your doctor may suggest TENS and electrothermal therapy for pain relief. If you suffer from lower back pain due to problems of intervertebral disc, then you may need intradiscal electrothermal therapy (IDET).
2. Chiropractic Care Treatment:
Chiropractic treatment involves manual adjustments to your painful back. The therapist manipulates your joints by implementing a sudden, controlled force to improve the quality and range of your motion. Generally, chiropractic care and appropriate spinal manipulation is effective and safe for chronic lower back pain.
3. Nerve Block Treatment:
Ganglion or plexus, which is a group of nerves, may cause pain in a specific area of your body or organ. This pain causing group of nerves can be blocked by an injection of a medication applied to the particular body area. This nerve-numbing injectable treatment is called nerve block that can minimize your back pain.
4. Bioelectric Therapy:
Bioelectric therapy is a drug-free, safe treatment that helps treat chronic back pain effectively by blocking pain signals to your brain. Also, bioelectric therapy supports your body to produce endorphins to help you get rid of the pain.
5. Spinal Cord Stimulation Treatment:
When all other treatments fail to alleviate your back pain, spinal cord stimulation treatment can help minimize it. It is an effective treatment that gives low-level electrical signals to your specific nerves or spinal cord to block the painful signals from reaching your brain.
6. Laminectomy:
One of the most common yet effective back surgeries to treat back pain is laminectomy. The surgeon removes the rear portion of your vertebrae or spinal bones and the ligaments and bone spurs that cause pressure on the nerves to offer you a great relief.
7. Spinal Decompression Therapy:
When you suffer from a long-lasting pain in back, then spinal decompression therapy can help you get relief. Non-surgical spinal decompression uses motorised traction that stretches your spine gently to minimize back pain. Surgical spinal decompression is the last option when the other treatments do not work. You may need one or more back surgeries and spinal fusion to have relief.
5 Care Management Techniques For Your Back Pain
- Boost Your Vitamin D & Calcium Intake:
Including foods rich in calcium and vitamin D helps you have strong and healthy bones and prevents the risk of developing osteoporosis, which is a common cause of back pain as you age. So, add milk, leafy green, cheese, yogurt, fatty fish, liver, and fatty fishes to your regular diet. Doctor may also suggest calcium and vitamin D supplements.
2. Sleep Keeping A Pillow Below Knees:
Sleeping on your back subjects your spine to pressure. However, if you elevate your legs a bit while sleeping, it helps in minimizing the pressure on your back. So, place a pillow below your knees and cut the pressure on your back by half.
3. Avoid Slumping On Desk:
Do not slump on your office chair. Choose a good, flexible chair when you need to sit in it for long working hours. Ensure that your knees are a bit higher than your hips when you sit.
4. Move Around:
Whether you are working for long hours or attending an office party, avoid sitting in a same position awkwardly for a long time. Move around the space as it helps avoid subjecting your spine to pressure which you may experience by sitting or standing in the same place for too long.
5 Quit Smoking:
Studies reveal that smokers are more likely to suffer from back pain than non-smokers, as nicotine restricts the supply of blood to your spinal discs when you smoke. It makes them dry, rupture, or crack. So, quit smoking.
Back pain, especially pain in the lower back is often cited as the cause of physical disability at the workplace. Physiotherapy has often been found to bring the much needed relief in patients with back pain. Now if your back pain has started to interfere with your daily activities, consult a physiotherapist without delay.
