Back Pain, Chapter 3

Back pain is bigger than just one blog, in fact it is immense.  We are trying to saturate the subject over several posts, and today's is the third installment.  We covered mattress shopping as a means to help put our bodies into a good posture position.  Today we want to look are non sleep related helps.

We know back pain, it used to own us pretty good.  There wasn't a day that my back didn't hurt.  But when I finally started looking at it, and stopped assuming that it was just not going away, I was able to take a whole lot less pain killers.  The reason I have concentrated on sleep, and the reason we now own a mattress store is that our sleep surface was the best change we ever made.  There are other things, and let us talk about them.

Chiropractic care is a good thing.  If you can find a good Chiropractor, they can lead you in a way to find the cause, while they alleviate the symptoms.  For many years all alternative medicine types were taken for granted, finally the mood in the country is changing, and Chiropractic is a good thing.  Now keep in mind there are still some practitioners that claim things that are incredulous, but most honestly try to help their patients be more pain free.  They learn body mechanics, and can be a well spring of help in identifying your problem.

Osteopaths are similar.  They also study body mechanics, and can help identify problems.  They tend to deal in a more medicine world, an osteopath may also be a trained physician. 

Medical doctors also work with pain.  A medical doctor can also be a surgeon, and there are times that surgery is the best course.  Never ignore any possibilities.  However, since surgery is very invasive, if possible, we recommend trying less invasive treatments first.

Along with these professionals there are a myriad of products on the market that claim to help.  Some are better than others, and for these products we recommend that you talk to friends that may have tried them.  If you do find something that helps, please review their product for the sake of others.  The more information you can find, the easier the decision, and a personal recommendation is a great help.



advertisement

There are basically two ways to attack the pain.  The first is to mask it with drugs.  While drugs can be useful, particularly in extreme cases, they do not go to the cause of the pain.  The second are mechanical devises or wearable devices.  These would include clothing worn to maintain posture, or machines that manipulate your skeleton.  Isn't it better to try to find the cause of pain and correct it than to just take pain killers forever?

Again the important part is finding out what is causing the pain.  Keep a journal noting what you are doing before you feel pain.  Once you see a trend, analyze that activity.  Let's use an example.  We will assume that we have discovered gardening is causing us pain.  We need to look at how we garden.  Are we lifting heavy plants or fertilizer bags incorrectly?  Are we stooping in odd ways?  It could be something as simple as the shoes you wear while gardening.  Attempt to change habits or wear different shoes and see if it helps.  Learn the proper way to lift, and get help with really heavy things.

We hope that helps you to start on a road of recovery.  And of course we are available at our store to help.  If you know of a product or service that has helped your pain, let us know in the comments.  We want you to have less pain, and we will do our part!  Until next time...

Sleep Well!