REPOST OF THE WEEK: BACK PAIN MISTAKE #5: NOT UNDERSTANDING BACK PAIN IS A PROCESS Most of the time, back pain, neck pain, and sciatica take weeks, months, or even years to develop. Usually, you’re not aware of a problem until something starts to hurt. But rarely is back pain the result of a one-time incident. Barring an injury like a car accident, back pain typically doesn’t happen overnight. And even if a fall or an accident did trigger pain for you, the fact is that before the event you likely had several “hidden causes” placing unnecessary strain on your body. Consider this example. Many of us sit for hours a day, especially if we’re required to work at a computer or be in the driver’s seat of a car or truck. The body wasn’t made to sit that long. (That’s why we’re seeing so many cases of back pain now as compared to several decades ago.) Sitting puts extra pressure on the spine. It also shortens the muscles in the front of our hips and the backs of our legs while weakening others, like the ones in the rear end and the abdomen. To make matters worse, most of us adopt poor posture when we’re sitting. The shoulders round, the head juts forward, and the back curves like a “C.” When we stand up again, we feel that tightness in the backs of our legs and in our hips, and most of us retain that stooped posture even when in the upright position. Imagine that the front end of your car is out of alignment, which causes the tires to wear unevenly. This also can happen to your muscles. Doing one thing over and over (such as sitting with bad posture) can throw the body out of its proper alignment, forcing it to adapt and work at strange angles. After a long period of operating this way, certain muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints wear down, while others that are barely used become stiff and weak. The end result of this long process is often a condition like back pain, but it also can manifest itself as many other conditions, such as foot pain, knee pain, hip pain, shoulder problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, and dozens of others. Unfortunately, X-rays, MRIs, and CAT scans don’t reveal much of the uneven wear and tear we’re talking about here, so many people are unaware of what has caused their pain. Even after undergoing treatment that may give them some relief, they have failed to address the underlying causes, setting them up to likely have to deal with this problem for a very long time. samadhi.ie/drogheda/back_pain.html
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 10:40:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015