I hope everyone had a safe and Happy Easter! The weather is starting to get warmer now, and I’ve started to get outside more with my family and enjoy spring. How is everyone doing on their New Year’s resolutions? It’s usually a good check-in time when spring arrives to see how you’re holding up with your resolutions. Don’t forget to check back in every few months to make sure you’re sticking to them. If you come into the clinic, I’ll remind you too! Accountability is a big part of it.
Today I wanted to talk to you about back pain. I’ve received a few calls already from people who were spring cleaning and threw out their back, or twisted it and now are in pain and can’t do the things they love. Has this happened to you? If so, don’t you want to get back to living your life to the fullest, pain-free? The summer’s coming up, and you won’t want to miss out!
I’ve put together the four main reasons why I see people’s back pain get worse. You may very well be doing one of these things! Don’t wait on your back pain; it’ll only get worse, and you won’t be able to make the most of sunny weather. I know everyone’s had a hard year, so let’s try and make this the best summer yet and live life to the fullest!
4 Reasons Why Your Back Pain is Getting WORSE
1. Living a sedentary life: There’s a common misconception that if you have back pain, it’s better to be complacent. This is a lie! Kind of… if you have a serious injury, we don’t recommend pushing it and causing further damage. At this point, that’s why we recommend seeing a professional, but there isn’t any benefit from just completely shutting yourself in. Unfortunately, we’ve seen inactivity lead to other problems, like balance issues. You don’t want to create other issues because you’re just staying at home, not being active at all! The best way to fix this is to get help (which is actually reason #4!)
2. Waiting too late to get help for your pain: From the moment you notice pain, it’s best to get help immediately, or within as least the first two weeks. After that, I’ve noticed people usually wait much longer. There is no way to gage how bad your back pain will get in a certain amount of time, but I’ll tell you this for free- back pain, like most other pains, doesn’t just go away. In fact, it typically gets worse over time. Don’t wait until you’re in even worse pain, or you can’t do the things you love anymore, to actually get help!
3. Not knowing the root cause of the pain: Many people (including healthcare providers, even doctors!) will get very fixated at the location of pain. However, many times the location of pain is not always the source or the root cause. For example, I see people all the time getting massages, injections, and acupuncture all aimed at their back. Nothing is wrong with that treatment approach… it’s just missing the root cause of pain in many people. I’ve worked with hundreds of people over my career, and the cause of their back pain is usually more complicated than just treating the back itself. Many people have back pain because thier hips are too tight and weak, thier core muscles are week, or thier less-than-ideal posture is contributing to their back pain. It’s not always just one thing that causes pain- it can be a multitude of problems compounding over time. If you only focus on the area of pain you often will get temporary relief, but the problem will never really go away.
4. Not getting help from a professional: I cannot stress this enough. So many people I’ve talked to over the years will go to a massage therapist, or chiropractor, and think it’ll fix their problem. Now, I am not in any way talking down on those professions- what I mean is, they may not be able to get to the root of your problem, whereas a therapist can find that and then fix it so it doesn’t come back. We don’t want a temporary fix here, we want to fix the problem so that you never have to come back! I also hear a lot of people say they’ve been doing exercises and stretches they’ve found on YouTube- STAY. AWAY. This can result in further damage that may result in dangerous, expensive surgery. Yes, you still need to stay active, but you need to get properly evaluated by a trained physical therapist that has had experience treating back pain. Lucky for you, we’re able to provide you with a FREE first visit, called a “Discovery Visit”, so that you can figure out what’s going on with your pain and take the next best steps to get you back to living a healthy, active, and independent life!
If you’re ready to get back to doing the things you love pain-free, call our office at 512-730-0231 and claim your Free Discovery Visit!
