My Solutions to My Low Back Pain
In the good ole days of yore—in my 20’s and 30’s when I weighed 190 lbs —picking up big things up and putting them down was a passion of mine. I was young, brash, and was relatively injury free; to make this matter totally worse, I was omnipotent. But as Socrates has said: the more you know, the more you know that you don’t know.
So, being in my mid 40’s now, all those years of spinning my tires have caught up with me. From head to toe, I’ve hurt or injured every body part known to man. Come to think of it, the reason I am relatively good at my job is that I’ve gone through so many injuries and have been able to get through to the other side…except one.
Despite my comparative success at emulating Wolverine from the X-Men, my lower back has been vexing me for years. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), 4/5 adults will experience low back pain (LBP) in their lifetime.
LBP is generally divided into two categories:
- Sub-acute—LBP that last 4-12 weeks.
- Chronic—LBP that last 12 weeks or longer.
Furthermore, 20% of those sub-acute conditions will lead to chronic state that can last up to 1 year.
Personally, for the last 5 years, I have suffered from chronic LBP. Initially, my sub-acute LBP was brought on the attempts to squat 400 lbs in my formative years, but lately my lower back has been stiff all the time; it is especially bad when I lay on my back for an extended time. So the worst is in the morning where on some days, I am so stiff that I can barely pick up my leg to pull on socks and underwear. So for the last few years, I’ve been in search for the Holy Grail of LBP.
A Little Science
The lumbar spine (lower back) has 5 vertebrae and between it rubbery discs that acts as shock absorbers. Ligaments hold it in place, tendons, which connect muscles to the vertebrae, help it create movements. It has nerves that branch out and transmit signals from the brain to the body. My lumbar spine, on the other hand, is missing a few pieces. I only have 3 out of the 5 discs left with bony spurs that protrude here and there. And my soft tissues down there are pretty crappy. What happened you asked? Part of it was due to wear and tear and part of it was a result of out right abuse—self-afflicted, of course.
The lumbar spine is a sturdy mechanism that can bend and absorb forces well. But when there is misalignment and too much wearing of the treads, it doesn’t function well, which in turn lead to a great deal of pain and dysfunction. It could be frustrating, inhibiting, and sometimes debilitating. In fact, LBP is the leading cause of missed work and job-related disability.
A critical aspect that I found is that in getting well and feeling better is not necessarily about getting back to 100%. Instead, what is critical is managing the pain and incorporating daily maintenance to get as much strength and flexibility back in the lower back.
So here are 5 things that have helped me (and hopefully will help you as well):
- Find a reputable PT with manual therapy skill to re-establish ideal spinal alignment and function.
- Pandiculate each day—this is a simple but effective stretch technique. Watch what your dogs or cats do after their naps.
- Floss your spine and perform corrective exercises—the goal here is to regain some of your lost spinal curvature. Ideal spinal curves are 60 degrees on the neck, upper and lower back.
- Do mobility (and stretching) work to strengthen/elongate shorten muscles around lower back and hips—with less use, muscles will physically shorten by dropping sarcomeres (basic unit of muscle tissue). Easier thing to do: Come to my stretch class.
- Try Trauma Release Exercise (TRE)—this is another thing that animal do instinctually to release build up stress/tension in the body.