What is Back Pain?

Acute or short-term low back pain generally lasts from a few days to a few weeks. Most acute back pain is the result of trauma to the lower back or a disorder such as arthritis. Pain from trauma may be caused by a sports injury, work around the house or in the garden, or a sudden jolt such as a car accident or other stress on spinal bones and tissues. Symptoms may range from muscle ache to shooting or stabbing pain, limited flexibility and range of motion, or an inability to stand straight. Chronic back pain is pain that persists for more than 3 months. It is often progressive and the cause can be difficult to determine.

Currently, researchers are examining the use of different drugs to effectively treat back pain, in particular, chronic pain that has lasted at least 6 months. Other studies are comparing different health care approaches to the management of acute low back pain (standard care versus chiropractic, acupuncture, or massage therapy). These studies are measuring symptom relief, restoration of function, and patient satisfaction.

Better Posture Makes for lesser Back Pain

How many years have you listened to your parents tell you to stand straight and stop slouching. Most kids feel that this is no more then being harassed by our parents, but the truth is, that no matter the reason they were telling us this, they were right. Parents tell you to improve your posture for appearance sake. But the truth is that with poor posture you all but guarantee back problems. Good posture on the other hand allows your back muscles to be stronger, your neck to be held up better and your muscles in general to suffer less. When you hold yourself wrong the muscles must work harder to hold things in the right place. This ultimately causes muscle strain.

Look at yourself in the mirror and see how your posture is. Stand how you would normally. If you are standing straight you should be able to see an imaginary line from your ear lobe all the way down, through your shoulders, hip and knee, to your ankle. Can you make this straight line? Many people cannot. That means that you are not holding yourself straight, that your posture is off and that you are causing your muscles to hold themselves at the wrong angle. This can be why you suffer intermittent or chronic back pain.

Sleeping and sitting are things we spend a lot of our time doing. Therefore we want to make sure that these are done right just like making ourselves stand straight. Sleeping should be done on a firm mattress only. A soft mattress, even if you like the feel of it, does not give you enough support. If you have a soft mattress you needn't replace it. Instead purchase a plywood board, get one that is a half an inch to three quarter of an inch thick and put it under the mattress. This will greatly improve the firmness of what you will be sleeping on and so help to better support your back.

Those who sit for a long time in their jobs also must do things to improve their posture. Sit straight in your chair, use a pillow or rolled up towel to give you extra support. Every hour get up for fifteen or twenty seconds and stretch for thirty seconds. This will help your back significantly. Specially designed chairs are great but truthfully the stretching will be better for you. Human beings weren't meant to be sedentary creatures. Convenience and technology have turned us that way. . We sit too much and exercise too little. That's why we're so prone to back pain and so why conscientiously working on our posture is a must.

You want to ensure that you come to naturally use good posture now. When you get older it will greatly affect how you move, the type of aches and pains you may experience and how active a life you will live as a senior. Do things now to make sure those senior years are good ones.

Written by: Scott Parat