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Chronic back pain affects more of us than we realise. It’s especially common in women who’ve given birth – you may have experienced lower back pain ever since becoming a mother. Due to the way most of us sit at desks to work every day, this also leads to a higher percentage of people with chronic back pain.
You’ve tried to fix it for years but to no avail. Today, you’ll see how to finally be pain-free by following a few incredibly simple tips!
Diagnose your back pain
The only way of getting to the bottom of a health concern is by learning what’s actually wrong with you. Do you have a slipped disc? Is your back pain postural? Have you got a trapped nerve? Don’t be afraid to see a doctor or get referred to a specialist who can look at your back pain symptoms and tell you exactly what’s wrong. This helps you treat the problem because you’ll quickly understand the right and wrong ways to soothe your pain.
Follow a rehab routine
After learning what’s wrong with your back, you should follow a strict rehab routine. This normally involves a combination of stretches, massage techniques and strengthening exercises.
For example, back pain from an over-arched lower back is one of the most common issues in modern society. It’s completely postural and comes from sitting down for ages. A rehab routine for this type of lower back pain will look like this:
- Stretch and strengthen your hip flexors
- Massage your lower back & stretch it out
- Strengthen your abdominals and glutes
This combination tackles the muscle imbalances causing your back to arch too much. It forces your body back into its natural alignment, so you finally get long-term pain relief.
Use medication to handle flare-ups
A rehab routine is more of a long-term solution, but what can you do in the short term to deal with your pain? This is where medication comes into play. It should never be your long-term answer to chronic back pain, though it’s highly beneficial to handle flare-ups and get some short-term relief while you work on fixing the main issues causing your pain.
Topical ibuprofen creams and gels are very effective at this, and many specialists now prescribe medical cannabis to treat chronic back pain. Find what works for you – but don’t use it as a crutch. It’s there to help until you gradually see less pain from your rehab routine.
Continue with preventative exercises
This is where most people go wrong and end up with chronic back pain for life. You stop doing your rehab exercise after seeing positive results and pain relief. Don’t stop!! Keep doing them as preventative and maintenance exercises that keep your body strong and stop the back pain from returning.
Again, it’s crucial to diagnose your pain to know what exercises are the best for sore backs. Still, most of you will benefit from core-strengthening, glute-strengthening and general back-strengthening exercises.
On paper, dealing with chronic back pain looks easy. It can be, but you need to commit to your rehab routine and continue doing the exercises for life. You’ll reach a point where you can do them once a week or so – it may seem like a lot, but the benefits will be there in sweet pain relief.
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