LOWER BACK PAIN
Lower back pain…UUUUGH…the bane of our existence. We’ve all experienced it at some point in our lives. It’s that annoying, nagging pain that just won’t go away. It can be caused by a variety of conditions, each with its own set of symptoms and treatments. So, let's dive into some of the most common conditions that cause lower back pain and some natural solutions to ease the discomfort. The treatment solutions are located at the bottom of the page, after we go through each condition separately.
Lumbago sounds like the next blockbuster Hollywood movie but it’s actually another name for lower back pain. It’s a general term that encompasses a wide range of conditions that cause pain in the lower back. It can be caused by poor posture, overuse, or muscle strain. To treat Lumbago, Chiro adjustments, Dry Needling, Cupping, Massage, stretching and using the Therapeutic Ultrasound are the most effective ways to help eliminate symptoms quickly.
This is a condition that occurs when the sciatic nerve, which runs from your lower back down to your feet, becomes compressed. This can cause sharp, shooting pain down one or both legs, numbness, tingling, or weakness in the affected leg. To treat Sciatica, a Chiropractor can perform adjustments, Dry Needling and Cupping. The use of the Therapeutic Ultrasound is a great added benefit as all of the mentioned treatments can be very helpful to alleviate the pain. Stretching, foam rolling, the use of the Spikey Massage Ball and a good old-fashioned Massage can also provide relief.
There is a condition called Piriformis syndrome that can present in a similar way to sciatica, however, with Piriformis Syndrome the pain is mostly local to the buttock and in worse cases some leg pain. Sciatica is typically with lower back pain as well as buttock and leg pain which can track down the leg.
This occurs when one of the discs between the vertebrae in your lumbar spine bulges or ruptures, putting pressure on the nerves that exit the spine in your lower back. This can cause pain, numbness or tingling in the legs or buttocks. This usually comes about from a twisting and lifting incident or other accident, but more often than not your body was predisposed to this from poor postural balance. Those of us that spend much time sitting, cause a shortening of our hip flexor muscles which, upon standing, cause an excessive curve in our lumbar spine to develop, called hyperlordosis. This imbalanced posture results in a condition called proximal crossed syndrome which results in the superincumbent weight (the weight of every part of our body above the level in question, including our whole spine, torso, abdomen, rib cage, arms, head and all of our organs), being born on the wrong parts of our delicate vertebral column. This predisposes us to disc herniation.To treat Disc Herniation, Chiropractic adjustments, stretching, Therapeutic Ultrasound and the use of a 4-in-1 TENS machine with an Interferential feature can be very helpful. See below for more details on how to use these at home devices below.
This occurs when the joints in your lower back become inflamed or irritated. This can cause pain in the lower back and can refer to your hips, or buttocks. To treat Facet Joint Imbrication effectively, we need to take a close look at postural imbalances, which is frequently a major contributing factor. When the muscles of the pelvis and lower back are imbalanced, particularly tight hip flexors from sitting and weak abdominal muscles, the lumbar spine is pulled into an excessive curve, called a hyperlordosis. This results in the weight of the rest of the spine, and everything attached to it, being born on the facet joints instead it resting on the big and strong vertebral bodies and discs. The delicate facet joints are present to allow increased movement in our spinal column, they are absolutely NOT designed to weight bare. Once again the good old Chiro adjustments and Therapeutic Ultrasound may work wonders in easing this condition, whilst the postural imbalances are addressed in the meantime.
Whether it's your ligaments or muscles and tendons causing the issue, the pain will likely feel very similar. Pain on certain movements, which is made worse with prolonged sitting or standing, can be a sign of a sprain or strain. Although it is difficult to determine which of these issues might be the culprit without adequate training, the benefit at home is that they are both treated in a similar way.
Arthritis comes in many forms, but most commonly the lower back is affected by osteoarthritis (OA). OA is a wear and tear type of arthritis that is a result of a previous injury to the area, or from general wear and tear. Although we can't turn back time and prevent a previous injury, we can prevent the likelihood of osteoarthritis by rehabilitating an injured back effectively. When it comes to general wear and tear, keeping the muscles surrounding our spine flexible and limber will go an enormous way to preventing wear and tear on our delicate spinal joints. Keeping your body moving, stretching, massages, rolling and cupping are great way to keep the muscles from becoming so tight that it will cause excessive, unnecessary wear on your lumbar spine. Laying on an acupressure mat is also a brilliant way to maintain optimal health of your spine and prevent osteoarthritis from developing. More on these therapeutic options below. For more information on arthritis and how you can help manage it at home click on the image to the left to read our blog.
Fractures in the lower back can be commonly caused by a fall, car accident, or sports injury. They can cause severe pain, swelling, and difficulty moving. To treat fractures, you should seek medical attention immediately. Once the fracture has been stabilised (if required), you can start the process of healing these fractured bones at home with the assistance of the Trauma Relief and Bone Aid Homeopathic Pain Relief Quad Pack and Therapeutic Ultrasound.
The Trauma Relief Cream and Bone Aid Relief Cream provide the building blocks your body requires to heal the fracture directly at the site that it needs it, the homeopathic oral sprays enhances the body's own natural ability to heal bone damage and the therapeutic ultrasound provides vibrational energetic healing directly over the fracture site to attract all of the healing blood cells and nutrition required to maximise the body's own healing effects. A very powerful combination, providing the body with the building blocks it requires and the extra energy to laser focus healing over the damaged area for faster results.
The sacroiliac joint (SI joint) connects the spine to the pelvis. When this joint becomes misaligned or subluxated, it can cause pain in the lower back, hips, and buttocks. To treat SI joint subluxations, Chiropractic adjustments are the quickest road to recovery. Often SI joint subluxation will result in one leg being longer than the other, so it is best to get it rectified sooner rather than later or other issues may arise as a result of walking around with a leg length difference.
Often in clinical practice a one sided problem in the lower back can be the result of a sprained sacroiliac joint (SI joint) that is trying to compensate for the lack of movement due to a subluxation of the opposite SI joint. A subluxation is a jammed up joint that is not fulfilling it's duty to move the pelvis as it should. The body will inadvertently compensate with extra movement in other areas to make up for this lack of movement, often causes a sprained ligament due to the excess movement that ensues. Check out the section on sprains and strains above for more information on this phenomenon.
Believe it or not, kidney problems can also cause pain in the lower back. If you're experiencing pain along with other symptoms like frequent urination, blood in your urine, or fever, it's important to seek medical attention for possible other medical issues. No amount of conventional stretches and exercise that we share here will help if there are other medical issues needing medical attention. If you are in doubt, make an appointment with your medical professional today.
Now, finally...(Gimme tips for relief please! 🙏) let's talk about some natural solutions to ease lower back pain at home.
At the very least using this powerful combination of the trio of creams is a must to assist the body to heal lower back pain, regardless of your diagnosis. The powerful natural active ingredients in each of the three creams have been specifically chosen by Dr Kez (Chiro) herself by combining her in depth knowledge of the human body and the pathophysiology that happens with musculoskeletal ailments as well as a broad understanding of the healing benefits of nature. By layering all 3 creams onto the affected area, your body is gaining the building blocks it needs to repair the specific anatomy that is damaged. Here they are in more detail:
Kirofix® Injury Relief Lotion / Trauma Relief Cream – these two products are one in the same, they just come in different sizes. Kirofix® is a large pump bottle to leave sitting on your bathroom vanity, while trauma relief cream is a 100g portable tub, useful to take on the go, in your sports bag, or to have discretely at your desk for applications at work. The active ingredients provide the building blocks for all soft tissues, ligaments, tendons, muscles, capsules, cartilage, discs and bursae. As a result it is brilliant for bursitis, tendonitis, torn muscles, arthritis and is amazing at helping the body to reduce inflammation and therefore pain.
Bone Aid Relief Cream – the active ingredients assist the body with healing bone, joint and nerve damage. It is extremely powerful in reducing pain as well as helping to heal bone, joint and nerves.
Heativate® Relief Cream – the active ingredients of this orange tinged cream have been specifically chosen to increase blood flow. For healing to take place the body needs two very important things. The first are the building blocks that the body uses to repair damaged tissues (Bone Aid Releif Cream and Kirofix® have this covered) and the second is adequate blood flow for delivering those building blocks to the area that needs them (that’s Heativate®’s role). The beauty of this product is the more active you are, the harder it works for you. Sitting on the couch you may only notice the pain relieving benefits, but if you get up and start doing housework or a gym workout, you’ll feel the area heat up as more blood flow is delivered to the underlying tissues.
We often get asked why we didn’t just put them all into 1 cream to make application easier. The reason is that we would have to lower the volume of each of the active ingredients of the 3 creams which would decrease their independent therapeutic effects. We have literally jam packed the highest percentage of active ingredients as we possibly could into these creams. Literally 0.5% more of any of the active ingredients and the cream separated into its constituent parts, trust me, we tried it, and it wasn’t a good look! Simply layer them on top of each other, delivering the maximum therapeutic effect.
Don't scroll past this one! Its' a super important part of keeping our bodies in great condition, as a preventative and as rehabilitating injury. Stretching can help relieve muscle tension and improve flexibility in your lower back.
When you wake up in the morning, bring your knees to your chest and gently rock back and forth and side to side for a minute. This helps open up the lumber spine and encourage blood flow, which is great for healing. If you have a disc problem or fracture, only do this exercise if it doesn’t exacerbate your pain.
Once you have completed the knees-to-chest stretch, gently lower your legs, keep them bent and feet flat on the floor (or bed), then gently and slowly allow the knees to lower to one side at a time, keeping your shoulders on the bed or floor at all times. Do it slowly as we want to avoid the back from cracking. Hold for one minute once your knees reach the floor, or far as you can. Then gently return your knees to the centre and repeat on the other side for a further minute.
These two stretches will help stretch out the tight muscles of the lower back. Create this healthy habit today!
Once again you need to ensure that your back is safe to do yoga, for example, a recent disc injury or fracture will require some healing time to be able to do these moves safely. Some good yoga poses include the cat-cow stretch, child's pose, downward dog, cobra pose and some bird-dog exercises to start to build strength in the lumbar spine area. Remember to continue with your yoga breathing throughout, as this helps to bring you into the present and dissipate stress. If any of the yoga poses cause an aggravation to your lower back pain choose a different pose. Pain is a signpost that what you are doing is causing harm to your body. Try a modification of the pose or choose an alternative that doesn't cause pain. The last thing you want to do is hinder your own healing. Remember if you are still feeling acute pain, get onto the therapeutic ultrasound and the trio of creams to heal the injury first and then move to rehabilitation.
Regular exercise can help to strengthen the muscles in your lower back and improve your posture, which is critically important. The posture of the lower back and pelvis can change the biomechanics of the whole spine and even have a dramatic effect on conditions like Plantar Fasciitis, Heel Spurs, Achilles Tendonitis, Sever’s Disease, Shin Splints, knee pain and hip pain. All as a result of the changes in weight-bearing that occur with postural imbalances. So in the long-term, exercises to balance muscles in the lower back can not only help to ease current pain, but help prevent it in the future…and the bonus? It can also help to heal many other ailments such as those mentioned above. Exercises that target the lower back muscles, include sit-ups and glute bridges. Working on your leg muscles, which influence the tilt of your pelvis, are also beneficial. Exercises like squats and deadlifts can be particularly helpful, depending on the particular imbalances that you are experiencing.
Applying ice to the affected area can help to relieve pain and inflammation, especially when the issue is acute. Using the Wrap-On Ice Pack helps to keep the ice pack compressed against the spine and allows you to be hands-free in its application. For heat on the other hand, this is only advisable to use when it is purely a muscular issue and not currently inflamed. Heating an area can increase the inflammation if the injury is still in the acute inflammatory stage and we don’t want to make it any worse. Once again, in those cases that heat therapy is indicated, the use of the Wrap-On heat pack makes the application easy and stress free. For those times when heat is indicated, also consider getting into a hot SoulSoak Recover Magnesium bath. Here you get the best of all worlds, the heat of the water will increase the blood flow and start the muscle relaxation process, while the 80 essential elements and minerals found in SoulSoak Recover Magnesium Bath Soak will enter your body via the skin to take muscle relaxation and repair to a whole new level. 💪
Our Premium Vacuum Cupping Set is the next best thing to a Dr Kez in your bathroom cupboard, giving you a tool to treat your lower back at home, as soon as they arise. For any type of muscular imbalance in the lower back and pelvis area, Vacuum Cupping therapy is a great option and can be done in the comfort of your own home. It can also be done, carefully, in the acute phase of these injuries because the patient can remain in a neutral position during treatment. Choose the appropriate size cups, rub oil onto the back muscles (or the rim of the cups) and then apply the cups to either side of the spine and onto the gluteal region (the buttocks). Leave the cups on for 10-20 minutes and enjoy the release you feel once you take them off. For a demonstration on how to apply the cups for lower back pain, click here to be directed to our "Best products for Lower Back Pain Relief."
If you also own a therapeutic ultrasound, and you are trying to rehabilitate from an acute lower back injury, choose to do cupping first and then finish off with your therapeutic creams and ultrasound. A very powerful combination to fast track back pain.
Can The Acupressure Mat Help With Lower Back Pain?
One of the main purposes of the Dr Kez Acupressure Mat is to enhance blood flow. Blood flow is essential to assist with healing and easing pain. Wherever the spikes touch, blood flow is directed, so laying on your back with your knees initially bent, will ensure the spikes are touching the lower back effectively. We did a lot of research when choosing the materials that make up our acupressure mat. The depth of spikes was extremely important, so we chose the most advanced lotus flower spike because its design creates a pump action as we breathe in and out, demanding even more blood flow that other spike varieties, but we didn't stop there. We realised that the material that makes up the inner makes a huge difference to the pressure exerted by the spikes onto your body. In other words, the more effective the acupressure mat is at demanding blood flow to the areas it touches. We chose, not only an eco-friendly inner, but the firmest optIon possibly, aside from a plank of wood, which would be terribly uncomfortable if you're suffering from lower back pain 😉 Our coconut inner is the perfect option to provide maximum benefit, while still offering comfort whjen laying on the mat. The number of spikes is also critically important to the effectiveness of providing nourishing blood flow to your painful lower back, so we've heat sealed (no toxic glue like some cheaper alternatives) hundreds of lotus flower spikes, there are thousands of spikes that cover a very large area!
The technique for assisting with lower back pain requires you to start by laying on the Acupressure Mat on your back with the D shaped pillow under your neck and bend your knees, to ensure the lower back touches the spikes, then after a few minutes, try to straighten your legs out to apply a traction through the lower lumbar vertebrae to open up the spinal joints to get all of the blood and nutrients deep into the discs and facet joints where it is needed most for healing. To watch a demo on how to achieve the best pain relieving effects for back pain, especially lower back pain, click here to be redirected to our "Best products for Lower Back Pain Relief."
How a TENS Machine Can Help Ease Back Pain
If back pain has been plaguing you for a while, there comes a time when you would do anything to just get a little relief. The best way to do this is to use the 4-in-1 TENS machine on the Interferential setting to help mask the pain and give your body (and mind) a break. How does it work? Basically, the brain can only perceive one sensation from an area at a time. So if your brain is currently experiencing pain from your lower back and you add a TENS machine to the area to add a second stimulus, the brain will start to feel the new tingling sensation of the TENS machine and no longer the ongoing chronic back pain. Sounds great hey! Using the machine on the Interferential feature takes this deeper into the body and is even more effective than the standard TENS feature, making it perfect for deep-seated lower back pain. This is a great way to help you get through the day without the ongoing nag of lower back pain, while in the background you are (hopefully) doing the above at suggestions to fast-track recovery. To watch a video on where to place the electrodes for lower back pain and how to get the most out of your 4-in-1 TENS machine, click here to be redirected to our "Best products for Lower Back Pain Relief."
What If I Have A Fracture Or Acute Disc Injury?
Once you have been to your GP and confirmed that it’s a stable fracture and followed their advice, it’s time to start healing at home. The Trauma Relief and Bone Aid Homeopathic Pain Relief Quad Pack is the first step to helping your body recover from a fracture in the lumbar spine. This pack contains the two creams needed for healing topically and the two homeopathic counterparts to encourage healing from within. Apply the creams three times daily. The homeopathic oral sprays, two sprays of each, three times daily, to get the body focused on healing the fracture stronger and faster. Follow up the use of the creams twice daily with a 10-minute Therapeutic Ultrasound treatment. The ultrasound sound waves pass energy onto the underlying cells, encouraging healing at a faster rate. Perfect for both fractures and acute disc injuries. For acute disc injuries lay in an anti-gravity position to take pressure off the disc during treatment (this simply means adding a couple of pillows under the belly/pelvis area, which will result in the bottom being pushed into the air slightly. To watch a video on how to use the therapeutic ultrasound for lower back pain, click here to be redirected to our "Best products for Lower Back Pain Relief."
What Do I Do If The Pain Isn't Getting Any Better?
Some lower back pain can be easily treated from home and then there’s the stubborn variety that needs a bit of outside help. If you are doing the suggestions above and still feeling significant pain, (don’t get me wrong, lower back pain can take a couple of weeks to heal), then perhaps it’s time to reach out to a Chiro or Osteo and get them to take a look.
In our Chiro clinic, Life Balance Adjustments, we take you through a full assessment, including a postural assessment, to determine where the issue lies and begin treating right away. There’s nothing worse than going to get your back treated and coming out of the Chiropractor's office with a referral for an x-ray and not getting any treatment done. We get to work straight away on loosening the tight muscles and realigning the subluxations in your spine and pelvis that can’t be treated from home. The beauty of consulting with a Chiropractor is that we can also guide you in what is best for you to do at home to get the fastest results with your specific condition. Perhaps the addition of a different stretch or exercise might be the missing piece to your back issue. This is quite often the case. So don’t discount the option of a Telehealth appointment if you find it difficult to get to a Chiro appointment. If you’d like to book a Telehealth or appointment with Dr Kez (Chiro) at her clinic in Watsonia /Greensborough VIC, click on the image below.
No, you can’t do this at home!! This is a brilliant technique your professional provider will do, that involves inserting extremely thin needles into trigger points in the muscles to help relieve pain and tension within the muscles. Great for postural imbalances and speeding up the healing of a significant number of conditions, including those mentioned above. It is an extremely effective technique in the lumbar spine and pelvis area. A highly trained practitioner can feel the muscles that contain these trigger points and know where to place the needles for the best result and to keep you safe. Even patients with acute disc bulges and fractures can enjoy the rapid benefits of Dry Needling when many of the other options like exercises, yoga and stretching are off the table initially. To experience the benefits of Dry Needling with Dr Kez at her clinic in Watsonia / Greensborough click the link above. Unfortunately, this incredible modality is not one that can be done via Telehealth.
What Else Can You Suggest For Prevention of Lower Back Pain?
So when it boils down to it, lower back pain can be caused by a variety of conditions, each with its own set of symptoms and treatments. Natural solutions like Chiro care, Cupping, Dry Needling, stretching, and Therapeutic Ultrasound can all be effective in helping relieve lower back pain. Remember to always consult with a licensed healthcare professional if you aren’t getting a resolution to your lower back symptoms. They can help determine the underlying cause of your pain and recommend the most effective treatment plan.
In addition to these natural solutions, there are also some lifestyle changes you can make to help prevent lower back pain in the future. Maintaining a healthy weight, practising good posture, avoiding sitting for long periods of time (especially with poor ergonomics), and engaging in regular exercise can all help keep your lower back healthy and pain-free. Click the image on the left to watch our video on how to assess the ergonomics of your workstation.
In conclusion, lower back ailments can be a real pain in the backside, but with the right treatment and preventative measures, it doesn't have to be a chronic issue. So, if you're experiencing lower back pain, take action today and try some of these natural solutions to help get the relief you need. Your back will thank you!