Lower Back Pain: What Should I Do? Can Chiropractic Help Me?
When you experience lower back pain you are often told what to do but it is also important to focus on what not to do. Many patients have the following question: Lower Back Pain: What Should I Do?
I think it would be valuable for you to discuss 3 common questions: Ice vs heat, should ignore my lower back pain, and rest vs activity.
Lower Back Pain: What Should I Do?
Ice vs Heat
This is a very common question and what I recommend for my patients is to start with ice. Ice would very rarely make your lower back pain worse. In addition, when there is pain in the joint or in an injured area there is increased fluid, swelling, and inflammation. Ice works to draw the fluid and swelling out of the joint or injured area and thus is anti-inflammatory.
Heat on the other hand, is a vasodilator and works to bring fluid in to an area. You may commonly experience that heat feels good when you apply it but it can actually make things feel worse later on because it is increasing the fluid and inflammation to the joints or injured area. If heat is applied to an inflamed joint and you increase the fluid and inflammation to the joint it is essentially like putting gasoline on the fire.
If lower back pain has been ongoing for longer than 3 months and is a chronic problem patients may actually prefer heat. However, I still recommend that they rotate between ice and heat making sure to always end with ice to draw the fluid out to have that anti-inflammatory effect.
Lower Back Pain: What Should I Do?
Should I Ignore My Lower Back Pain
I often find that patients want to ignore their lower back pain and hope that it will get better on its own. There are certainly many cases where lower back pain can get better on its own but if you wait for this to happen you also run the risk of the pain progressing into a disabling lower back pain. Thus, if you wanted to avoid disabling lower back pain I believe it is in your best interest to receive treatment sooner rather than later. When should you receive treatment? You can look for the warning signs of twinges in your lower back or when your lower back doesn’t feel quite right. This would be the time to receive treatment which would likely prevent it from becoming disabling lower back pain and then interfering with work, golf, or some other activity that you enjoy doing.
Lower Back Pain: What Should I Do?
Rest vs Activity
When you experience lower back pain many people think that the best solution is rest. However, actually resting can make the pain worse and have the episode of lower back pain last for a longer duration. The best recommendation is to actually stay as active as you can by going about your normal activities. It is fine to work through some soreness but certainly if you do an activity that causes any sharp or severe pain you should stop doing that activity or modify the activity so you do not experience the sharp pain. Again, smart movement will reduce your pain and reduce the duration of your lower back pain.
If your lower back pain is constant, daily, interfering with sleep, or affecting activities during your day then call my office at 651-779-5998 for a FREE Back Pain Consultation to determine if my office can help you get out of pain. Our office focuses on short term chiropractic relief care. Our goal is to improve your pain and get you the relief you want in the fewest visits possible. We take our recommendations one visit at a time. Call today, 651-779-5998 to set up your FREE Back Pain Consultation. There is no obligation for care by having the free consultation.
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