21 Easy Ways to Treat Back Pain

Back Pain is an incredibly common ailment. Most people at one time or another will experience lower back pain at least once during their lives. On the bright side, if you suffer from lower back pain, you don’t have to be helpless. There are things you can do. Make sure you know all the things that you can try.

Sleep

Sleeping can be tough when you are suffering from back pain. To get relief you need to maintain your body’s natural spinal curvature.

To do this, you can either sleep on your back or if you feel more comfortable sleeping on your back, to sleep with a towel or pillow under your knees.

Limit Bed Rest

If you hurt your back, it’ll be tempting to stay off your feet and get lots of bed rest. You should avoid this temptation. Too much time in bed can cause a hose of problems.

Muscles can and will lose conditioning if you get too much rest. Also, blood clots can form in your veins. Clinical trials has shown that early return to normal activity with rest as needed is most often the best course.

Exercise

Simple Activity is the best medication for back pain. Strong muscles are better at supporting your spinal column than weak muscles.

Even simple exercises like stretching and walking are great. Walking gets the body out of the sitting position and into an upright neutral position, while stretching keeps the muscles and ligaments loose and limber. Ideally, if you are in a lot of pain, you should look for exercises that are low impact but still strengthens your core.

Lifting Weights

If you don’t feel like stretching and walking is enough, you may consider weight training to help strengthen back muscles. Lifting weights will tone your muscles, improve your balance, and increase your bone density.

If you decide to lift weights and you are new, you should see a professional trainer first. You need to learn proper technique and to make sure you are using a suitable weight. Bad technique or too much weight can do more harm than good.

Yoga

Another great set of exercises to help with back pain is yoga. Yoga has many benefits for the back. It strengthens your core muscles and back as you need to hold many different positions. It also stretches your muscles and promotes flexibility, while being low impact for your body.

Better Back Habits

When your mom told you to stop slouching, she knew what she was talking about. Bad back habits can and will cause problems with your back.

Most of these habits have been known for ages. You should lift heavy objects with your knees instead of your back. Sit up straight, don’t slouch. Take walks and stretch through out the day. Good habits add up.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a 2,500 year old Chinese traditional medical treatment of inserting needles into the body to help stimulate healing or pain relief.

Though no one knows exactly how it works, many people have found that acupuncture has helped with back pain.

Massage

Massages can be a really good treatment for back pain, especially lower back pain.

In a study, 400 random people were given a weekly massage for 10 weeks. It was found that most people had at least modest improvements, while a significant minority had their back pain nearly or completely eliminated.

Heat or Ice

Ice or heat can help give relief to back pain. Though heat is almost always the preferred way to treat back pain, ice can help if there is swelling and inflammation from an injury. But most often back pain is caused by spasm or knots, and ice can actually aggravate pain.

Heat is the standard treatment for lower back pain because it helps muscles relax. You should apply heat 15 to 20 minutes at a time, with moist heat like a bath or shower working better than a dry heat. You can also try an all-day heat wrap that you can get at a pharmacy.

Medication

Pain medication usually can’t heal back pain, but they can mask the effects enough that other treatment can have a chance to work. The first class of drugs you can try are the over the counter medications you can buy at the pharmacy without a prescription, like Tylenol or ibuprofun.

If you need stronger medication you’ll need talk to your doctor about getting a prescription for a narcotic, like codeine, or muscle relaxant, like Valium. Caution is needed though when taking prescription medications as side effects can be more severe.

Topical Creams and Ointment

Topical creams and ointments are much like medications in pill form. They provide temporary relief, but won’t cure long term back pain.

Creams and ointment has several advantages over pills in that pain relief is often much quicker, and the application of the cream can also help in massaging sore muscles.

A New Mattress

Sometimes the cause of lower back pain is just an incorrect mattress. Lack of support from a mattress reinforces poor sleeping posture, strains muscles, and doesn’t support the body. All of which will add to lower back.

Researchers found that people who slept on a medium-to-firm mattress reported less back pain than people who slept on a softer mattress.

Chiropracter

Though some chiropractors make outlandish claims about what they are capable of, chiropractors can do one thing really well which is manipulate and keep the spine aligned.

Though the research for the long term benefits of seeing a chiropractor is still under dispute, many studies agree that seeing a chiropractor provides short term pain relief.

Relaxation

There is a strong correlation between stress and back pain. Stress can trigger back pain by making muscles tense up or restricting blood flow.

If you feel stress is causing your back pain then you should learn some relaxation techniques such as deep breathing exercises or meditation.

Lose Weight

The 2nd best way to relieve back pain after exercise, is losing weight.

Extra body weight puts abnormal stresses on joints and bones the human body isn’t designed for.

Natural Supplements

You can try taking a natural approach to treating your back pains by taking herbal supplements. You can try glucosamine which naturally coats your joints and cartilage. Studies has also linked vitamin D deficiency to back pain.

Tuperic, a South Asian spice, is known for it’s anti-inflammatory properties, helping with inflamed muscles. With any supplement, consult with your doctor before you decide trying them.

Aquatic Therapy and Whirlpools

If you suffer from back pain, then you need to get to a pool, for exercise and pain relief. Exercising in water like swimming is great for the back due it being relatively low impact and strengthening your core.

Warm water especially from a whirlpool or Jacuzzi is also great to massage back muscles.

Injections

If your back pain is extreme, you may consider getting injections. Injections may be an anesthetic or anti-inflammatory to help with pain or a steroid to help with tissue healing.

The benefits to an injection is that the medicine is applied directly to the back muscles, though you’ll need to consult with your doctor first.

Surgery

Surgery is the last resort to relieving back pain. You should consider surgery if other forms of treatment don’t work. .

Back surgery is not a cure all. It can only correct anatomical conditions like spinal instability or nerve pinching. If nothing can be identified in a CT scan or MRI, then surgery won’t help.