Lower back pain can be caused by a number of factors. Sometimes back problems are quite common as you age because of the changes in your bone density, degeneration and arthritis. Though back pain can occur in just about any part of your back, lower back pain is the most common. Most of us have experienced LBP after lifting a heavy item. You know,  you feel that sudden pain on your lower back? That is because lifting the heavy item might have caused strain on your muscles or compression on your joints or lumbar discs.

Lower Back Pain Symptoms

Pain in the lower back is the most common of back pain symptoms. The lower back pain may either radiate down to your leg or just be confined to your lower back. The pain may or may not go away after some time and rest; however, it can keep on recurring when you perform certain activities. Pain that is is more evident after prolonged sitting or standing can be a problem. The lower back pain may be associated with numbness in the leg, sciatica, making it difficult to stand up or walk.

Since pain in the lower back is often caused by muscle strain, the best relief from the pain is to rest your spine and see the extent of the injury. This will prevent further damage to your muscles and spine, and allow your muscles to not be injured further.

I frequently recommend putting a pillow between the knees while you are lying on one side. Or lying on your back with a pillow under both your knees to ease lower back pain.

Doing some lower back stretches can do wonders, too. (Like McKenzie exercises) One effective exercise requires you to lie down on your back on the floor or a firm bed. Then gently raise your knees up until they are above your stomach. Slowly spread your knees and grab the inside of your shins just below your knees. If you can reach for your ankles, that’s even better. While exhaling, bring your knees further out to the side. While doing this, you will feel your inner thigh stretching as your back relaxes. Stay in that position for a few minutes, continuously breathing slowly and smoothly. You may also try bringing one knee to your chest, then both and then each knee up towards the opposite shoulder.

You may have heard about traditional Chinese medicine. A lot of people resort to these centuries-old remedies to alleviate a lot of common ailments, including lower back pain. Some of the popular remedies for lower back pain are acupuncture, herbal remedies, massage techniques, and my favorite…chiropractic care.

Lower Back Pain Remedies

If you are industrious, and stubborn you may try to make a liniment out of common items that you can find in your pantry. Extract the juice from grated ginger. Then mix together equal parts of ginger juice extract and sesame oil. Next, heat the liquid mixture until warm. You may apply a small amount on the painful area and massage for a few minutes. This home-made liniment effectively stops the pain and aids in blood circulation.  It is generally safe to apply several times a day.

Treating lower back pain on your own is not the best approach if the symptoms persist, it is still advisable to consult your chiropractor or physician  to avoid further complications in case the injury is serious.. And if all else fails…a chiropractor in the Lakewood, Littleton and Denver area who has options such as spinal decompression, K-laser therapy, sports medicine treatments, computerized adjusting, spider-tech tape and spinal manipulation can be ‘just what the doctor ordered’ for lower back pain.

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Thank you reading our article Lower back pain – quick pain relief remedies.

Posted from Lakewood, Colorado, United States.

If you’ve been experiencing lower back pain, take a few minutes to read this through and consider the sources that may be hurting you.

Certain nerves control certain functions in the body. Pain is only one of the functions. Certain nerves carry certain messages. Pain is what’s called a nociceptive signal sent to the brain in response to an even that could be painful.  Not all nociceptive signals are reproduced in the brain as pain though.  Sometimes the signal can be nociceptive, but the amplitude of the signal isn’t high enough to register as lower back pain.  In this case it might only be a dull ache or nothing at all.  Take for instance a sports injury like cutting a finger in a football game and not feeling it; nociceptive thresholds can change due to your activity or due to such day to day things stress.

Lower Back Pain Left Alone

Lower back pain left alone too long may turn into things like sciatica or numbing and tingling in the leg, which could be sign of a herniated or bulging disc (disk). A lot of times I see improper foot bio-mechanics as the causative factor in chronic LBP. ‘Causative’ meaning THE primary reason for pain in the lower back, sacroiliac joints or hip pain or piriformis syndrome.

Many times a person may injure their low back and not notice the pain till that evening… or the next day. It’s possible that the injury was a muscle strain in this case and when activity decreases the muscle and the pain threshold ‘relax’ enough to notice the nociception to the point that the brain registers the signal as pain.

Lower Back Pain and Bending

Bending forward and pulling weeds in the garden is a pretty common task, but if done for too long it can be similar to a lifting injury and result in lower back pain.  If you hear a ‘pop’ in your spine, it’s likely you over did it. Maybe a ligament injury or herniated disc. Maybe the pop was a strained muscle or a joint dysfunctionly moving.  Back off of your activity and rest immediately until you can be checked.  Letting an injury recover right away is always best – no matter how big or small the injury may seem.  Eventually, injuries will always catch up with us if we ignore them. Symptoms is your body’s way of communicating with you about it’s well-being…pay attention.

Lower back pain affects 80% of Americans at some point in their working lives.  All professions are susceptible too…office managers, receptionists, laborers, drivers, and CEO’s.  Injuries can be chronic in nature such as poor ergonomics.  Chairs can be important if you work in an office and you’re trying to prevent lower back pain.  The important thing to consider is how well the chair fits you. Even the best chair with good support ‘steals’ the job of supporting your spine from your core spinal muscles.  Is support bad, no. But the best support comes from conditioning the intrinsic muscles of the core. Lower back exercises and core exercises are imperative to incorporate into your lifestyle especially with chronic back pain cases.

The point is to maintain a level of fitness that is synonymous with your lifestyle so that YOUR spine can support itself and do what you ask of it so lower back pain doesn’t become chronic.

Posted from Lakewood, Colorado, United States.

What’s the best lower back exercise?

Drum roll please…

There isn’t one! BUT, here’s what you really need to know to find the best lower back exercise..

There are literally hundreds of exercises and treatments for lower back pain. The best lower back exercise today may not be the best next month for you. Some require expensive equipment, some are moves adapted from yoga or maybe it’s a lower back stretch or stress reduction technique. Plenty of things can be done at home. And when it comes down to it, you’re the one that has to choose what to do to help manage your pain.

How?

By listening to your body. One of the major virtues in life is to learn how to listen to the inner wisdom of your body. I mean really listen. Memorize the following rules, they’ll teach you how to choose the best lower back exercise.

OK, granted there are a plethora of tools and techniques to help get rid of lower back pain, so to save you the pain (pun intended ) of trying to figure it out, here’s a cool list of rules to figuring out which is the best lower back exercise – the ones that will likely be most effective to help manage or get rid of lower back pain:

Best Lower Back Exercise Guidelines

1. If it hurts, don’t do it
This rule simply means that pain is bad. When you are trying a new exercise, or performing one you know, the exercise should be helping to relieve pain, not increase it. Some things to consider when implementing this rule are: (1) change the resistance (i.e. decrease or increase the weight), (2) change the speed (i.e. slow down or speed up), (3) change the range of motion (i.e. make your movement smaller or bigger). If none of these things helps to decrease the pain you are experiencing as a result of the exercise itself, stop the exercise.

2. If it helps, do it as often as you feel is necessary
Exercise is movement-movement is health. When you find a movement that results in an immediate reduction in your pain, do it for as long as you are able and as frequently as you are able. The only reason to ignore this rule is if increased frequency increases the pain (see #1 above).

3. If you aren’t sure how to do the exercise correctly, don’t do it at all
Let’s face it: some exercises are simple to learn and perform, and others are harder to figure out. If you can’t do the exercise precisely the way it’s meant to be done (which means that you aren’t 100% confident that you are doing it correctly) then don’t do it at all. If you think it might be helpful to learn, then find someone to teach you.

4. Listen to your body
I can’t tell you how far reaching this one tip can go be-in all aspects of health. But regarding lower back exercises, some will require gradual increases in intensity to maintain their effectiveness (i.e. you may have to increase the resistance as you get stronger, or increase the range of motion as you are able). The rule here is to make increases slowly, test to be sure you tolerate the change (i.e. it doesn’t hurt), and repeat gradually over time. Don’t rush this process. If you find a good exercise for low back pain then use it as a tool and know that there is no right answer of how to how quickly to progress – everyone is different. Make a collection of what helps you-  the best lower back exercise you come across. Listen to your body.

Determining which exercises to do for lower back pain can be a daunting task. My hope is that with the information you learned in this article, you’ll be on your way to managing your back pain quickly and effectively and becoming a good steward of your human machine. Just as the best chiropractor for you is the one who can help YOU, the best lower back exercise is the best one for YOU, at that time.

Best Lower Back Exercise Advice…

If you need a chiropractor in Denver give us a call. We’re actually in Lakewood, Colorado. If you need a referral to other chiropractors in Colorado closer to you or another type of provider leave me a note here and I’ll try to give you a recommendation. Maybe you need yoga, pilates, massage therapy, physical therapy, rest… who knows. That’s what these rules were meant to do is give you some guidelines for YOU, because you are unique and every day and situation is unique. Take this info into account when deciding which is the best lower back exercise for you.