A series of papers, due to a long term trial and study have been published in the Lancet.
They make interesting and worrying reading, asking the worldwide medical profession to stop offering ineffective and potentially harmful treatments and NICE is agreeing with them
Such as Strong drugs, injections and surgery they are generally overkill, they say, with limited evidence that they help.
People may have seen the article on the BBC “Many back pain patients are ‘getting wrong care” if you want to have a look
The truth of the matter is, in a lot of cases they are getting the wrong care.
What we need to look at is.
“Painkillers mask pain they do not heal the damaged area, also Painkillers WILL NOT speed up your recovery
In most cases they don’t help as we think they should, but because the Doctors give them to you and the advertisers say they do, then we believe that it is the right thing to do, when your in pain with your back you may not want to hear that, Your back is stronger than you may imagine , your spine is very strong and it is not easily damaged.
Most back pain is best managed by keeping active
Remember that good exercise and activity, choose the right sort of activity for you and build on it, this can reduce and prevent back pain.
In most cases people have strained muscles in the back, that in itself is painful, the lower back muscles, consisting of your Extensor, Flexor and your Oblique muscles ,
Low back pain can feel very debilitating, when you feel in pain, you do not want to keep active and do exercise, but you need to Avoid bed rest and get moving but keep it gentle, at the same time please avoid aggravating activities, no digging the garden you need to use the principles of kinetic movement when bending or lifting, in a way that is comfortable for you, using the hips and knees.
People talk about “Slipped Discs” this terminology is BAD, your discs Do not slip, they can however Herniate and there is treatment that can help with that.
The thoracic spine is the longest region of the spine, it is also the most complex.
It connects your cervical spine above to the lumbar spine below, the thoracic spine runs from the base of your neck down to your abdomen and It is the only spinal region that is attached to your rib cage. The type of pain in this region, is upper back pain, it is most commonly caused by muscle irritation or tension, a lot of you may have heard the term myofascial pain, in most cases this is caused mainly by poor posture, often bad workplace seating affecting , forward head posture, or any type of irritation of the large back and shoulder muscles, again muscle strain or spasms are an issue.
Then we have to consider Joint dysfunction. In the Thoracic spinal joints, this can become very painful in various ways, from cartilage tears and disc degeneration , developing in the facet joints where adjacent thoracic vertebrae articulate with each other.
It is also possible for a rib to become misaligned or displaced from the vertebrae, this is a case of a tissues muscular injury becoming a structural injury, or even facet joint degeneration (osteoarthritis) and degenerative disc disease can happen at the same time, for these sorts of issues you would need to talk to your Doctor who would more than likely need further confirmation with a scan.
It is that step between being in pain and feeling terrible, to feeling that you can cope, then going on to feeling better.
This is the area that we here at Getfitstayfit Norfolk aim to address , getting from that point of being in so much pain, that you do not want to do anything and feeling that you need to take pain killers, only to find either none or minimal sort term relief, so you take more pain killers and do less.
The cycle starts and that is the cycle we need to break or even prevent. You need to be able to get good quality sleep, if you can, because it will help you feel better overall one of the main things most of our patient’s tell us is that they have not been able to sleep, one thing they also tell us after treatment is that they have slept, this means a lot as it is the first stage of recovery.
We know that Massage can help with low back pain, along with spinal manipulation , here at Getfitstayfit Norfolk we also use the Bioneuro, unlike a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Simulation (TENS) that is digital. the Bioneuro is Analogue and works with the bodies natural ability to heal. it is none invasive, but can get into those muscles quicker and deeper to aid in recovery .
You also need to look at the root cause of the injury.
- Is it poor posture
- Is it seating position on a work place chair
- Have you not used kinetic lifting when lifting something heavy.
- Have you overstretched
- Have you be overdoing it in the garden or while doing DIY
- Are you doing exercises wrong, or an injury while playing sports
- Have you had an accident ,that may have long term implications.
Any of these things can be the cause , there are also other factors that we can look at, like a herniated disc or in some cases disc degeneration, we can work with your Doctor on a plan to help with these issues.
What ever the reason, getting you to pain free movement, is the first step and in some cases it is all about baby steps, we work with you at your pace.
To Get You To Be The Best You Can Be.
