What Is The Best Way to Treat Low Back Pain?
When looking at where the majority of healthcare dollars are spent on musculoskeletal care, low back pain takes the cake. The United States spends billions of dollars every year trying to treat low back pain, but we as a healthcare system continue to fall short in applying best practice for these cases. Today, I want to talk about how we can best continue to eliminate low back pain!
Low back pain is an umbrella term that can have a multitude of factors contributing to it. Spine irritation, disc irritation (in the form of disc bulge, disc herniation, etc.), muscle irritation, and nerve irritation to just name a few. Pain itself is multi-factorial and is so much more than just tissue irritation, but there is a big knowledge bomb I want to drop that will be VERY positive for your outlook on this situation. Our healthcare system is great at finding tissue pathology via imaging, but the amazing thing about the human body is that it is very reliable in self healing. Numerous imaging studies have been published showing that there are just as many individuals with asymptomatic tissue changes (NO pain) as there are of people WITH symptoms and tissue change. What should you take from this you say? The golden nugget of information is that since there are people walking around with the same tissue changes in their low back (disc bulge or nerve compression to name a few), they are having NO pain at all! This gives us strong confidence that you can ALSO be pain free.
So how do we go about getting you back to pain free living and rid you of this low back pain? As always, there are numerous resources online as I’m sure you are well aware, but my first recommendation is to seek a trusted healthcare professional to assist you in gaining the optimal results you desire and deserve to get back to moving at your best! A good place to start though is find movements that are tolerable and continue to do those. Bending forward hurts but bending backwards relieves pain? Perform on/off low back backwards bending while standing as if you are stretching like you got out of bed for the first time in the morning. Also work to get your heart rate elevated to your best capacity. Science shows us that the better we can stimulate systemic changes such as getting moderate cardiovascular activity, the positive internal bodily changes are unmatched! As per the title of this post, the BEST way to treat low back pain is to gradually and progressively get back into the movements that made your back irritated in the first place! If this has been a chronic issue, then we need to perform tempered exposure to the low back to allow it to appropriately ramp it’s mobility and strength back up to where you are now a pain free individual again!
Have more questions about how physical therapy can help low back pain? I would be happy to chat further about how Loon State Physical Therapy can be your teammate in getting you back to moving and feeling your best! Call us at (612) 405-8503 or book with us online for an in-person or virtual appointment.
Until next time!
Andrew Eccles
Owner and Physical Therapist at Loon State Physical Therapy
