Michael Greenspan NMT

The 5 Step Natural Solution to Back Pain

Posted on 03. Nov, 2011 by Michael in Back Pain

Achieving a healthy, balanced and stable back can be problematic if you do not approach it holistically. What does holism mean? In general it is treating the person as a whole unit instead of individual parts, and using techniques that treat the body on many levels to get to the true cause. It’s approaching your body as one entire unit to find the back pain causes, rather than simply looking and trying to fix lower, middle or upper back pain right at the spot.

Treating for example lower back pain causes holistically means using the right techniques in the proper order or you risk re-injury, pain and continuing the pain spasm cycle.  An example is strength training too soon and doing certain back pain exercises often exacerbates back pain giving poor results.  When you have tight back, hip, and pelvic muscles in spasm causing you pain, strength training is often the last thing that should be on your mind.  Because moderate or severe back pain often stems from the physical as well emotional levels, good results come from treating the mind as well as the body. It is well known that depression is an important risk factor for back pain.

Whether dealing with mild or extreme low back pain or any musculoskeletal problem, the health practitioner must assess the condition of the muscles, in particular muscle imbalances for strength and weakness, proper posture, movement, and alignment. A thorough trigger point assessment as well is crucial to get to the root cause of the pain.

A simple prescription for pain killers from your physician, while effective at relieving pain, is a poor long term solution to manage back pain. For example, the scar tissue in muscles that is formed after injury when NSAIDs (ibuprofen) are used is much weaker. The patient needs to also consider the side effects and consequences of stomach or gastrointestinal bleeding that can come with long-term use of pain killers. Leaving muscular skeletal problems to remain for years while masking the pain, will just make future rehabilitation more difficult and less effective. Injections for back pain are done to alleviate symptoms yet often with its own inherent risks too.

It is important to understand that when rehabilitating injured soft tissues and back pain, you should follow certain steps in a proper order to insure the fastest possible recovery without re-injury.

Step one is to eliminate the spasms and hyper-contractions in your muscles.  It’s well known that “landmine” knots in your muscles called trigger points are at source of over eight percent of muscle pain. The trigger points tend to tighten and weaken your muscles, radiate pain, and often are the back pain cause.  It’s very interesting to note that you can’t stretch out these trigger points.  Hence you can’t stretch out pain. That’s why stretches for lower back pain may bring only temporary relief.

Step two is to restore muscle balance and proper posture alignment with Posture Alignment Exercises. Correct postural alignment dictates organ, blood vessel, and nerve position. It dramatically affects physical, psychological, emotional, and energetic levels.

And you have less strain on your muscles, ligaments, and tendons fighting to hold you upright.

Step three is stretching to restore flexibility to your muscles. Stretching your short, tight muscles fixes muscles imbalances often at the source of pelvic instability and back pain.  Notice we’ve yet to get to strengthening exercises.  It’s important to stretch or “lengthen” a muscle before you strengthen it to avoid re-injury.  So stretches for lower back pain can work, mostly after getting the trigger points deactivated and muscle balance restored.

Step four is to increase muscle strength of the injured tissues.  First get “straight” by realigning your posture and lengthening your muscles.  Then get “strong” with proper functional strength training.  Pain is signal from your body, so the message is to stop when any exercise hurts.

Step five is to increase muscle endurance with functional endurance exercises.  By this time you are mostly pain-free

A good Neuromuscular Therapist and Posture Alignment Specialist will advise you on integrating a holistic approach with muscular skeletal care, relieving trigger points, posture realignment and pelvic stabilization exercises, flexibility, strength training and more.

If you’re a Los Angeles Back Pain sufferer or looking for a pain management or pain relief specialist, call now.

Tags: holistic healing, lower back pain