14 Dec 6 Ways to Treat Your Lower Back Pain
According to WebMD, about 25% of Americans are affected by lower back pain in a given year, and more time is spent treating it than any other medical condition except high blood pressure and diabetes. This isn’t that surprising when you think about all the back is required to do to support your body and activities. Without your spine and the structures that support it, you wouldn’t be able to sit, stand, walk, or even give someone you care about a hug. Many people fail to consider the health of their spine until back pain becomes a daily companion. Your team at Mile High Spine & Pain Center is trained to offer you the best treatment options medicine can offer you. The following six steps will help you to reduce your lower back pain.
6 Lower Back Pain Treatment Options
Pain killers and/or surgeries are not your only recourse for treating your lower back pain. Advancements in technology and science afford you with many more options that promote natural healing and keep you away from side effects and risks. Our Westminster and Broomfield area patients can benefit from the following 6 treatments for their lower back pain:
- Electrostimulation to calm irritated or damaged nerves
- Spinal alignment therapy to straighten out slipped vertebrae and relieve pressure on discs
- Recommendations for braces or other support appliances to protect the back during activities that put it at risk
- Steroid shots to reduce pain in one specific area
- Exercises and Massage Therapy
Electrical Stimulation
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation calms irritated/compromised nerves that can be contributing to your lower back pain. Electrostimulation therapy is applied with transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or TENS. This pain management technique eliminates trigger-point-related pain. TENS works by utilizing the power of electrical currents. The treatment applies these currents to your tissues triggering thermal, physiologic, and chemical responses. These safe, painless currents actually alter your pain impulses. Electrical currents work to increase blood flow to muscles, restore your range of motion, and build muscle strength and endurance.
Spinal Alignment Therapy
If you are struggling with chronic, lower back pain, or neuropathy symptoms like numbness and tingling, the issue may lie with your 24 vertebrae. A series of spinal adjustments at Mile High Spine & Pain Center can help restore proper alignment, improve your posture, and relieve any number of related symptoms, while giving you greater flexibility and range of motion. Many issues that affect the limbs originate in the spine, and therefore respond well to adjustment.
Braces and Therapy Tools
Depending on the cause of your lower back pain, certain braces or therapy tools may be prescribed to help you heal, to help prevent further injury, and to relieve pain. Muscle strains, joint problems, poor posture, lifting heavy objects, hunching over doing yard work, not having a supportive mattress–all these things can cause lower back pain. Braces can help to relieve pain and inflammation, and help to fully support your back during your injury as you heal.
Steroid Shots
Steroid shots can relieve nerves that keep sending out signals of pain due to compression or joints that hurt due to arthritis or wear and tear. Steroid shots: 1) relieve inflammation; 2) reduce swelling; 3) reduce heat; and 4) eliminate pain. Medications are delivered right where they are needed for fast relief. Soft tissue can also be treated successfully with this type of therapy.
Exercises and Massage Therapy
When a serious spinal injury leaves you waiting on a slow recovery process, vibration could help. The shaking increases blood flow throughout the body, which could speed up healing time according to the clinical research completed by the Rehabilitation Sciences Research Centre. Massage therapy provides you with an hands-on approach for your chronic neuropathy pain and symptoms. Massage therapy helps to restore circulation to the compromised parts of your body that are limiting sensation or functionality. Massage therapy also feeds your system with naturally-made chemicals that help your body cope with pain and inflammation. Improved circulation, higher serotonin levels, increased range of motion, and an overall feeling of improved mood and well-being are some of the results of massage therapy.
Customizing Your Treatment
After your initial consultation with us, we can create a treatment plan that is customized to your unique needs and goals. Determining the cause of your lower back pain will help us eliminate it. To get to the root cause of your pain we will start with gathering your medical history and conducting a physical to learn about any underlying risks or predispositions you may have. We combine this information with state-of-the-art testing to explore the spine and the nerves for signs of damage. Once we know what is causing your lower back pain, we can put together a custom solution that fits your lifestyle. Most of our patients find a combination of the above treatments prove to be the most effective.
Free Lower Back Pain Consultation
If you are suffering from lower back pain, the team at Mile High Spine & Pain Center are ready to help. Mile High Spine & Pain Center provides specialized treatment plans for back pain to patients in the Westminster and Broomfield area and can help you understand where your symptoms are coming from and what it will take to improve. Call (720) 507-0080 today to schedule your free consultation!