Yoga For Back Pain Relief

Good, regular yoga practice will go a long way to relieving the stress and tension that can sometimes cause mild back pain. In fact, studies have shown that yoga is the number one most effective exercise for relieving back pain.

However, not all yoga poses relieve back pain and some can actually aggravate the existing pain, so it is important to know which poses will be most helpful in relieving back pain.

It is best to do these exercises under the supervision of a certified yoga instructor and if you encounter any problems with these poses, you should consult an expert. Even just one or two sessions with a yoga instructor can help, an instructor will help you with your form and posture during poses.

Here are some of the best yoga poses for relieving back pain. Each pose should be held from five to ten seconds, depending upon your level of comfort, and should be done on a mat or other soft, supportive surface.

Corpse: Lie flat on your back in a relaxed position, arms resting at your sides, palms down, and legs lying naturally, with knees turned out slightly. If it hurts your back to have your knees turned outward, do this pose with knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Breathe in and out for a few seconds while allowing any tension to leave the body.

Cat Stretch: Start out on your hands and knees with a flat back. Your hands should be directly under your shoulders with fingers spread. Knees should be directly under the hips. Head is held loosely so that you are looking at the floor between your hands. Inhale, and as you exhale, arch your back toward the ceiling, tuck your chin in to your chest so that you are looking at your navel, and tuck your tailbone underneath. Hold, then release back into your original position.

Wind Releasing Pole: Lie flat on your back as in Corpse pose. As you inhale, bend your knee, place your hands right below the knee, and draw your leg towards your chest. Your left leg should remain flat on the floor. Exhale and bring your forehead up to touch your knee. Inhale, and then as you exhale, return to your original position. Repeat with the other leg.

Sage Twist: Warning for this pose—it involves twisting your back, so you should take particular care not to twist too far or you risk aggravating any existing back pain. This should be a gentle stretch; twist just as far as is comfortable. Sit on the floor with both legs out in front of you. Bend your right knee, lift your right leg over your left, and place your right foot on the floor next to your left knee. Sitting with spine straight, place your left elbow on the right side of your right knee. Bend your left arm so that your left fingertips are touching your right hip, while at the same time, twisting to look over your right shoulder. This is where you need to be careful not to twist too far. Hold for a few seconds, release, and repeat on the opposite side.

Palm Tree: Stand with feet facing forward, arms at your sides, weight distributed evenly on both feet. Raise both arms over your head, interlock your fingers, and turn your hands so that your palms are facing upward. Next, place your palms on your head and turn your head so that you are looking slightly upward. Stretch your arms upwards, and at the same time, come up onto your toes if you can do so without pain. Stretch your entire body upward and hold, if you can. Some people have difficulty balancing during this pose, so just do the stretching parts if you need to.

Fish Pose: Lie on your back with knees bent and arms at your side. Arch your back as far as you comfortably can and raise it off the ground by pushing the floor with your elbows. If you can, tilt your head backwards and rest the crown of your head on the floor. Breathe deeply from the diaphragm and hold pose for one minute if you can.

Locust: Lie face down with arms at the side, palms down, and elbows slightly bent with fingers pointing towards the feet. Raise your legs and thighs as high off the ground as possible without causing your back any pain. Hold for one second and repeat up to twelve times. This can be a vigorous exercise so you must take care to strain already injured muscles.

Bending Forward Pose: Stand up straight with feet together and arms hanging loosely along your sides. Breathe in deeply and raise your arms straight above your head. While breathing out, bend forward and touch your toes if you can. If you can’t reach your toes, grab hold of your ankles or calves. To complete the pose, you should touch your head to your knees, but this may be too difficult for many who suffer from lower back pain. Your movements during this pose should be smooth, not jerky.

Specialized treatments

Specialized treatments

In some locations, physical therapists are specially trained to be involved in other types of treatment, including:

• Vestibular rehabilitation, which helps your inner ear respond to changes in your body position. This is helpful if you have problems with vertigo, or a feeling that you or your surroundings are spinning or tilting when there is actually no movement. Rehabilitation (rehab) can help you get used to the problem so you know when to expect it. And rehab can train your body to know how to react.
• Wound care. Wounds that are very severe or don’t heal well, often because of poor blood flow to the area, can require extensive care. This may include special cleaning and bandaging on a regular and long-term basis. Sometimes hydrotherapy, oxygen treatment, or electrical stimulation is part of the treatment.
• Women’s health. Physical therapists often work with women on exercises to help control urinary incontinence or to relieve pelvic pain.
• Oncology (cancer care), to help if cancer or treatment for cancer causes you to have problems with movement.
• Decongestive lymphatic drainage, which is a special form of massage to help reduce swelling when the lymphatic system is not properly draining fluids from your tissues.

Exercise

Exercise

Exercise is anything you do in addition to your regular daily activity that will improve your flexibility, strength, coordination, or endurance. It even includes changing how you do your regular activities to give you some health benefits.

For example, if you park a little farther away from the door of the grocery store, the extra distance you walk is exercise. Physical therapy nearly always involves exercise of some kind that is specifically designed for your injury, illness, condition, or to help prevent future health problems.

Exercise can include stretching to reduce stress on joints, core stability exercises to strengthen the muscles of your trunk (your back and abdomen) and hips, lifting weights to strengthen muscles, walking, doing water aerobics, and many other forms of activity. Your physical therapist is likely to teach you how to do an exercise program on your own at home so you can continue to work toward your fitness goals and prevent future problems.

Pain Management and Sciatica

Sciatica is a common type of pain affecting the sciatic nerve, a large nerve extending from the lower back and down the back of each leg.

What Are the Symptoms of Sciatica?

Common symptoms of sciatica include:

• Pain in the rear or leg that is worse when sitting
• Burning or tingling down the leg
• Weakness, numbness, or difficulty moving the leg or foot
• A constant pain on one side of the rear
• A shooting pain that makes it difficult to stand up

Sciatica usually affects only one side of the lower body. Often, the pain extends from the lower back all the way through the back of the thigh and down through the leg. Depending on where the sciatic nerve is affected, the pain may also extend to the foot or toes.

For some people, the pain from sciatica can be severe and debilitating. For others, the pain from sciatica might be infrequent and irritating, but has the potential to get worse.

Seek immediate medical attention with any symptoms of progressive lower extremity weakness and/or loss of bladder or bowel control.

What Causes Sciatica?

Sciatica is caused by irritation of the root(s) of the lower lumbar and lumbosacral spine.

Additional common causes of sciatica include:

• Lumbar spinal stenosis(narrowing of the spinal canal in the lower back)
• Degenerative disc disease (breakdown of discs, which act as cushions between the vertebrae)
• Spondylolisthesis(a condition in which one vertebra slips forward over another one)
• Pregnancy

Other things that may make your back pain worse include being overweight, not exercising regularly, wearing high heels, or sleeping on a mattress that is too soft.

Sciatica Treatment

Sciatica is the longest nerve in the body, originating in the lumbar spinal cord and descending down to the knees and feet. Any kind of irritation in this sciatica nerve can cause pain. The pain starts in the lower back or buttocks and slips down to the knees and ultimately to the feet. Herniation of the discs is another potent cause of sciatica. An x-ray, MRI or a CT scan can further confirm the status of your condition. Interestingly, in most of the cases, some self preventive measures like a little rest and avoiding things that can trigger the pain have proven that it can ease the pain to a great measure.

One of the most readily available sciatica treatments is ice or hot packs, according to ones condition. After 48 hours of the pain, applying any one of them can relieve you of the pain. A bit of stretching exercises can strengthen and relieve pressure from the affected area, but remember not to twist or jerk anything. Regarding the medications to be used, they are categorized into two categories. Generally, the ones which relieve pain and inflammation and secondly, those which only cure the pain. But non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like aspirin and ibuprofen are considered comprehensive in the sense that they can perform both these functions. NSAIDs have a lot of side effects like ulcers, bleeding of the stomach and sometimes nausea.

You should take these only after consultation from a doctor. Some stretching exercise and a bit of yoga can do wonders. You can take the help of a qualified physical trainer, if you want to cure your pain through exercise. If any of the above-mentioned methods does not work for you, then you need some serious treatments like steroid injections. Corticosteroids are the injections that are used to relieve the pressure and to get rid of the pain. The last sciatica treatment is surgery. Discectomy and micro-discectomy are some of the preferred surgical methods to remove pain resulting from sciatica.

Lower Back Pain Treatment

Low back pain surely occurs to a person at least once in his/her lifetime and can turn in to a deadly disease, making the person disabled. In fact, back pain is the number one disability for those under 45 years of age. But, the good news is that low back pain is treatable and sometimes preventable too. A variety of treatment options are available for relieving low back pain. Each treatment has its own way of treating the patient but all the treatment options have the same aim of reducing or stopping the irritable and disturbing pain.

One of the common and easy treatments for low back pain include active treatments. The success of these treatments depends upon the patient himself, as he is required to undertake these treatments on his own. Some of the active treatments for low back pain include:

Exercise: Some active forms of back pain exercises are necessary for alleviating back pain. In fact regular back pain exercise routine helps in avoiding recurrences of low back pain and also reduces the severity and duration of the possible future episodes of low back pain. Back pain exercise program should include a combination of stretching exercises like hamstring exercises, strengthening exercises like dynamic lumbar stabilization exercise and McKenzie exercise, and low impact aerobics like walking, bicycling, or swimming.

Quit Smoking: Smoking can lead to low back pain as it damages the vascular structures of the discs and joints in the back. Quiting smoking would improve blood circulation and healing. Also, nicotine results in inhibiting bone growth by undermining the fusion process after the spine fusion surgery. So, patients of spine surgery should quit smoking for allowing the bone to heal.

Weight loss: Losing your weight will surely help in reducing low back pain by lessening the amount of stress on the low back muscles and ligaments. Patients carrying more weight around their midsection pose greater risk for obesity-related health problems like low back pain. Due to pressure of extra weight on your back, your disc and other spinal structures can get damaged.

Ergonomics: Ergonomics is the study of the workplace as it relates to the worker. Ergonomic furniture, proper lifting techniques, supportive footwear and avoiding static posture for prolonged periods of time would surely help in reducing pressure on the low back.

So, these are some of the active treatments for low back pain which when applied in daily life can shoo away your back pain.

Ball Therapy

There is present an unusual method to treat lower back pain, which uses an exercise ball also called as physio or swiss ball to prevent low back pain as part of a rehabilitation program. It is known as exercise ball therapy. This exercise ball helps in strengthening the core body muscles which stabilize the spine. This exercise ball introduces an element of instability to which the body automatically responds enabling to keep balance on the exercise ball. This exercise makes your back and abdominal muscles strong.

This exercise uses a term called ‘proprioception’ which is described as an awareness of where one’s hand or foot is, in relation to the space. The opportunities to evaluate the orientation in space and develop and train the body’s natural awareness are provided by the instability of the exercise ball. The exercise ball provides spinal movement which helps in reducing pain by stimulating the body to produce increased amounts of natural pain inhibitors.

Exercise balls are available in various sizes so one can opt for an appropriate size, according to the suitability factor. For proper use, exercise ball must be practiced under the supervision of a physical therapist or any other spine specialist.

The various advantages of exercise ball therapy are:
Its an easy and simple way to start your normal life after the back pain episode.
It helps in improving the muscle strength.
It offers greater flexibility and range of motion to the spine.
It offers enhanced balance and coordination of core muscle groups which helps in stabilizing the spine. It tends to maintain a neutral spine position during exercise.
However, some precautions should be kept in mind while performing exercise ball therapy. These are:
It should be performed in a controlled manner and speed usually starting slowly and then building confidence afterwards.

The manufacturer’s instructions for care and use should be strictly followed.
Patients should perform short exercise routines first and then increase the time accordingly. Patients with beginnings of acute low back pain are not advised to perform this therapy.
If your pain increases while using the ball then stop the usage of this therapy.
If these precautions are kept in mind they would help you to reduce or diminish your pain successfully and without any complication.

10 Prevention Tips

Back pain can be very excruciating and can snowball into a major medical problem if not attended to timely. Take note of the following tips to avoid back pain.

Tip 1: Follow Your Body Signs
Any harm that comes to the body is indicated through occurrence of pain. Hence, treat back pains seriously and take adequate precautions to first suppress it and later to avoid it.

Tip 2: Do Some Exercise to keep the Muscles Agile
We need to do a lot of work in our day to day life; the type of work done is also different as well. Our back muscles would start to pain if they are not habitual of bearing the strain of heavy work. You can work out in order to improve their strength. Further, damage can be avoided by doing some warm up exercise before doing any heavy work.

Tip 3: Avoid Injuries during Work by Warming up
It happens on a number of occasions that we attempt to do tasks which our back won’t be able to tolerate. What follows is back pain or injury. This can be avoided by warming up for a few minutes before you start doing the task.

Tip 4: Give your Body Enough Rest
Heavy work of any type should be followed by a period of relaxation. This would allow your body muscles to relax and recuperate. If you don’t do it, your back muscles would be the first one to get hit.

Tip 5: Pick up Things Correctly
The most frequently performed activity involving the back is picking up things. And most people suffer from back pain while performing this. The reason is simple- improper method of lifting. You should lift things properly and keep the back straight while holding them.

Tip 6: Do not Laze Around
Your muscles need to be always ready for some type of work or the other, otherwise they will hurt. Moving around the house or workplace regularly can help you avoid any type of injury to the back.

Tip 7: Use the Right Furniture to Sit on
Incorrect posture while sitting is one of the major causes of back pain. This can be avoided be sitting on a comfortable chair. It should have a back high enough to support your lower back as well as shoulders. Anything higher or lower could result in damage to your back.

Tip 8: Sleep in a Correct Posture
Sleeping on your chest is an awkward position to sleep in. It can also cause back pain. The best position to sleep in is the sideways position. Sleeping on your back is also good but do maintain a comfortable level of your head.

Tip 9: Avoid Indiscriminate use of Pain-killers
Do swallow pills like food if you have a back ache. Use them judiciously. First address the root cause of the problem and only then go on to medications.

Tip 10: Refer to a Chiropractor
When the situation goes out of hand, know that it is time to consult a chiropractor.

Back Surgery

Herniated disk or ruptured disc or bulging disc is recommended for surgery if the condition of the patient has worsened.  In severe herniated disc, the bulged disc presses the nerves or muscles exaggeratively and the pain troubles the patient a lot. A slight movement or motion of the body causes  a lot of pain. In condition, the person almost becomes disabled and cannot make the slightest movements.

Before the herniated disk surgery is carried out the doctor would first confirm the position of the bulging disc and its severity. Magnetic resonance imaging is done to get the exact location of the herniated disk and its protruding nerves. If the images taken don’t convince the doctor of a severe condition, he may not carry out the surgery. Surgery is the last option of treatment.

There are many advanced steps in the surgery for this sort of herniated disk of the spine. But, blades are not the first choice of many doctors. The surgery of herniated disc is called Microdiscectomy or microdecompression spinal surgery.

In carrying out the surgery, the small portion of the cartilage or the bone is removed under the nerve root. This relieves the neural impingement and more room for the nerve is thus provided. The nerve not only gets free from the thrust but also gets space for healing soon.

Another form of surgery for herniated disk is called Percutaneous Microdecompression or Endoscopic Discectomy. In this form of surgery, lasers are used for shrinking the herniated disc. This is the most advanced form of spinal surgery that treats the patient without any cut or tear.

After the surgery, the patient needs to follow certain restrictions and maintain proper postures for sleeping as well as sitting and walking. After two to three weeks, he or she is recommended some physiotherapy sessions for continuing for as long as possible.

Back Ache Protection

Back pain can be one of the most annoying ailments that your body may suffer from. It will restrict your working ability by a severe extent. It is extremely important that you protect yourself from back pain so that you can work for long hours without much fatigue. Here are some guidelines to protect your back.

While in Bed
Whereas it might seem the most odd place for a back pain to crop up, it is important that you protect your back while in bed. You must make sure that your bed is back friendly. Excessively hard and excessively soft beds are both causes of back pain. You have to find a bed that is just the perfect in terms of both- tension and size, to protect your back. Proper mattress is also extremely important. Not all the people would be able to handle the common coir mattress. If you are one of them, you should choose a mattress with fiberfill.

While in Car
While you are driving, your back has to undergo a lot of stress. The bumps and fast braking are both big enemies of your back while on the road. For people who drive a lot, it is strongly advised that they should get a Shiatsu massaging seat. Such seats are easily available, starting from just $100. Such a seat would gently massage your back while driving. It is also important that you maintain proper seat position. Make sure that your position in car is not too rigid nor are you so stretched that someone may mistake you for lying down. It is also important that you get in and out of the car in the correct manner. This involves gently easing in and out of the cabin.

While at Work
This is the most common source of back pain. You should be very careful about the posture you sit in. For the people who have a desk job, getting an ergonomically designed chair is all the more important. Even if you are not able to procure an ergonomically designed chair, it is important to ensure that you sit upright, rest your back after some hours and take short walks after every two hours or so. If your work involves lifting things and moving them around, make sure that you do so in the correct way. The correct way is not to bend on your back to lift things but to bend on your knees so that your back remains perpendicular to the ground.

All in all, back pain can be easily prevented if you follow these guidelines and make sure that you get in touch with a doctor if you feel the slightest of backache.