Did you know that one of the most often used reasons for sick leaves or disability time offs from work is lower back pain? Apparently, this musculoskeletal disorder is so prevalent that it nearly 80% of people would experience it at least in one point in their lives. In fact, you yourself may have already experienced it.

Despite this prevalence however, not many are truly able to understand the many things and nuances of lower back pain. That’s why they are shocked when they suddenly encounter this condition.

Here are some of the more frequent questions asked about Lower Back Pain. Hopefully, knowing the answers to them will help you be more prepared for it.

What is lower back pain?

Simply put, lower back pain is any pain that is felt in the lower back area of the person. The lower back pain may come from a variety of causes, but what usually happens is that the muscles of the back would have been sprained or strained.

You should note that lower back pain is usually classified by how long the pain lasts. There are three classifications, namely “acute” if it is less than 4 weeks), “sub acute if it takes 4–12 weeks, and chronic if it is greater than 12 weeks.

What are the usual causes of lower back pain?

There are various causes of lower back pain. You could classify them however into two.

The first classification would be trauma. Traumatic causes mean those that lower back pain happened because of a direct injury to the muscles in that area. This could be taking a fall while playing sports, slipping down the stairs, or whatever else that would cause you to hit your back muscles with a great force.

The other cause could be classified as muscle imbalances. Under this classification, you could consider the poor postures that you take due to work and other activities that would lead you to develop misalignments in the various part of your lower back. These misalignments would increase the wear and tear of the muscles and joints which could put pressure on the nerves, causing you pain.

What are the common treatments?

Common treatments for back pain would usually involve numbing the pain and waiting for the body to heal itself. There are various ways to do it such as cortisone shots, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and even topical creams.

Some doctors might prescribe surgery as a last option. However, these are usually for situations where back pain has more serious issues surrounding it.

What can I do to feel better now?

The best you can do to help prevent low back pain from occurring would be to implement some ways for you to avoid the two classifications of back pain.

First off, you should always take care of your back when engaging in physical activities. The next would be to try and strengthen your lower back muscles through proper exercise and therapy so that you would be able to avoid the misalignments that can cause people pain.

You should also try to have the proper posture in everything that you are doing, so that you would not develop conditions that can worsen the wear and tear of your lower back muscles.

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It is a fact that nearly all people from around the world would have experienced some form of lower back pain during a period in their lives. In fact, it is such a common occurrence that many people would choose to just live with it and continue with their daily activities.

However, pushing through with your regular activities when you have lower back pain may not be a good idea because of the possibility of aggravating your injury. Hence, it is a smarter choice to first let your injury heal or get treatment for it before resuming you day to day doings.

Of course, in order to get the proper treatment, you should first understand what lower back pain truly is.

What causes lower back pain?

As the name implies, lower back pain is a painful feeling or tightness in the lower back portion of the body. This pain could be caused by a variety of reasons that are usually classified into two groups. The first is by physical injury or trauma, and the other reason is that it is caused by muscular imbalances.

Physical injury is when you tweak your back muscles because of an unnatural motion. It could be twisting vigorously or a bending movement that was done too rapidly. In this case, your muscles may have tears in them which would cause the pain. Similarly, trauma is when you get hit by an external object in that portion of the body which would also cause lower back pain.

On the other hand muscle imbalance when you have one part of your body that is overdeveloped but other parts are not. By having one part overly developed the other muscles become weak and stretched out of their usual position.

This can happen for a variety of reasons. Some reasons would include your posture at work (seating in a certain way would develop a few muscles while straining the rest), playing a certain sport that only utilizes one muscle group, or even over reliance on a dominant hand or side of your body (left handed people would have a more developed left hand than their right hand).

What are the common treatments of lower back pain?

The common treatments would usually try to give people some relief for their pains but not necessarily treat the root causes of it. As such, most treatments would be pain killing creams, Non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and hot and cold compresses applied to the painful region of the body.

What can I do to really treat my lower back pain?

As mentioned earlier, the treatments tackled above do nothing but numb the pain without trying to solve the main causes. As such, the things that you would have to do in order to be free from lower back pain would be those that would target the reason that you are feeling some pain.

You may want to engage in some muscle balance therapy to help remove the muscle imbalances that cause the pain. It would give you pain relief not because it numbs the pain but rather treats the root cause of it.

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Lower back pain is a nuisance that can be avoided without living the horror stories you’ve probably already heard about back surgery. Good news — there are some very common, avoidable causes of low back pain — and common mistakes people don’t even realize they make, that can actually hinder the healing process.

That’s right — you can find lower back pain relief … naturally.

Doctors report that 50 percent of people having episodes of lower back pain can find relief within two weeks, and 90 percent of lower back pain can heal within three months – with proper self-healing mechanisms in place. But that won’t happen without a true understanding of lower back pain, how to avoid it and how to allow your body’s natural healing systems to do their job.

That’s not to say that major injury with extensive damage won’t require a doctor’s hand in repair, but even in those situations your body still has to heal itself.

Charles Gaudet, a lifelong athlete and chronic back pain sufferer, has inspired thousands of people with his story of recovery from debilitating back problems. He has spent much of his adult life researching and identifying ways for lower back pain sufferers to heal themselves, take their lives back and live healthy, active and happy. And there are ways to do it effectively, even avoiding the complications, pain and extended recovery associated with surgery.

“One of my most powerful realizations for myself, and perhaps my greatest gift to myself was realizing that I don’t have to live my life in pain,” Gaudet says.

“There are some common mistakes that people make that actually inhibit their healing. Understanding your body’s amazing healing powers and supporting the healing process can yield life-changing benefits even beyond the joys of pain relief.”

RESPOND to lower back pain: Listen to your Body

One of the primary ways to engage the body’s natural healing systems and allow healing to begin is to understand your body’s warning system: the pain itself.

Pain happens for a reason.

Pain in your lower back is your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. It’s a sign that something you’re doing is not working – perhaps that’s a nutritional issue, a postural balance issue or even an emotional issue that’s manifesting itself in the body.

Stay active to relieve lower back pain

Recent studies have shown that prolonged rest for most types of common lower back pain is one of the worst things you can do to find lower back pain relief.

Even  for those that require surgery and-or physical therapy for lower back pain,  recovery will always involve some level of activity at some point. It will be exceedingly rare for a health-care professional to tell you to just lay around and do nothing.

By being too inactive for too long, your lower back muscles will atrophy. That means that by not using them, they get lazy and weak, and they will actually lose their ability to effectively support your body. If there’s an injury involved, even just a minor strain, it will get worse if the surrounding muscles and muscle groups aren’t doing their job to pick up the slack for the strained muscle.

See a qualified professional for recommended back pain exercises.  Likely they will admit that some light stretching, walking and other such low impact exercise (such as swimming) may do you some good.

Lower back pain causes: Understand them

The most common causes for lower back pain are listed below. If you are serious about finding low back pain relief, it’s invaluable to know the causes. 

• Strain from poor posture. Sedentary lifestyles, accidents, injuries, bad habits, etc. cause an imbalance in your body.  With your body out of balance, this puts a strain on your muscles, joints and tendons to keep you upright leading to pain and discomfort.
• Nutritional deficiencies. You’ve got to eat right to properly equip your body’s healing systems and avoid the foods that often are a catalyst to pain. Gaudet’s web site, www.backandneckpainresources.com, is an excellent resource for easy, tasty eating that will help the body heal faster and more effectively.
• Manage stress and anxiety. Lower back pain will manifest and worsen when you carry stress, worry and trauma in your muscles.   More often than not, addressing these issues can result in successful back pain relief even when nothing else has worked in the past.

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