I hope you tried out the suggestions for helping your back pain in the previous post. Those are just two suggestions, and no, I imagine they haven’t completely taken away your pain yet, but I do hope you’ve given them both a sustained, honest effort. To get long term relief from back pain, you must, must, MUST become less sedentary and reduce chemical stress on your body. Now for two more great suggestions that will help you get rid of back pain without surgery:
3. Let pain do its job.
One very simple way to help get rid of your back pain is to actually feel your back pain. Stop ignoring it, and for goodness’ sake stop numbing it. Pain is an important gift. Pain is not “weakness leaving the body.” Pain is your body telling you what should be obvious: Something is wrong! Stop. If it hurts to stand or sit that way, then move around. Get up. Adjust. If it hurts to walk that fast, slow down a bit, but keep walking. We live in a stressed out culture, and we also live in an attention-deficitculture. We have all been trained to multitask and run around like crazy people, trying to do too much. You may have too much on your plate and there’s nothing you can do about that for now. But if you’re going to get rid of your back pain, you are going to have to start paying attention to your pain. Notice it. Feel it. Listen to your body.
If you’re taking a lot of pain medicine or anti-inflammatories, I am going to make a counterintuitive suggestion. Cut back or quit taking that stuff entirely. If you can’t feel the pain, that doesn’t mean that your back is fine. It just means you can’t feel it. So it means you’re probably further aggravating theproblematic areas. So then the next day you take more medicine. Instead of numbing it out, I challenge you to allow your pain to do its job for two weeks. Your body has the ability to make adjustments if you will just give it the chance.
4. Get an evaluation from a chiropractor.
While all of the above is very good and necessary, if you have serious back problems, your back may be in a position where it will not be able to simple correct itself. Months or years to too much sitting, slouching, bad sleep habits, carrying too much weight, and add to that a few tweaks here and there take their toll. But there really is great, wonderful news. For decades now chiropractors have been offering a method of bringing the spine into alignment which is documented to bring significant and often total relief to back pain of all kinds.
Sadly, many people believe that traiditional medicine is the only route to getting help for back pain. So they follow the trajectory of taking medicine, then steroid injections, and then they begin having surgeries. Many people who take steroid injections or have had costly and sometimes ineffective surgeries are shocked when the learn that the problematic sites in their back could have been relieved by regular chiropractic care.
If you are facing taking injections or are considering back surgery, do your own homework for sure, but please stop by Ranicki Chiropractic and Wellness Center, or if you’re not in our area, give us a call and we’ll gladly help you find a quality chiropractor or tell you what to look for. I know you are tired of the pain. It really is possible to get healing and relief for the pain, to feel yourself again, and to work and play the way you want to. Before you go under the knife, why not give us a call or stop by and make an appointment for an evaluation.