5 Ways to Combat Chronic Back Pain

Few problems can render a person’s ability to move and fulfill basic needs inept like chronic back pain. Back pain can often become more than you can manage on your own. It can create several challenges for families, friends, and health providers.

While many traditional treatment methods rely on the use of medications and even surgery, there are safer and healthier alternatives, such as physical therapy. Physical therapy may alleviate symptoms with significant benefits!

If you’re suffering from chronic, unexplained back pain, contact our physical therapy clinic today to learn more about your treatment options.

What is chronic back pain?

Chronic back pain refers to pain that lasts more than three months. It is a progressive pain that gradually worsens with time and basic daily activities. Oftentimes the cause of back pain may remain unknown — a person simply may not know what caused it or pinpoint a point of origin.

However, most people can recover from back pain by understanding its causes, especially those that do not derive from an incident, such as a car accident or work injury.

Causes of chronic back pain

Acute pain is typically an expected bodily response to a severe injury. However, the repeated use of joints after an inflammatory response may lead to the worsening of symptoms and disease progression, explains the NINDS. This is where the acute pain turns into a chronic condition.

Chronic back pain may arise from a sudden, traumatic injury or repetitive stress on the vertebrae. People suffering from chronic back pain may feel uncomfortable sensations such as a prick, burn, tingle, sting, or aches. In addition, those with poor posture, bulging or herniated discs, arthritis, skeletal irregularities, and osteoporosis may suffer from chronic back pain more often than their peers, says the Mayo Clinic.

Other factors can also contribute, such as age, weight, poor lifting form, and even mental health conditions. These all may increase a person’s risk for back pain, and it only takes one injury for a condition to persist into the realm of long-term problems.

How can physical therapy help relieve chronic back pain?

Choosing physical therapy as a first-line treatment is quickly becoming the most popular and well-recommended means of managing chronic pain. According to Move Forward PT, government agencies, including the CDC, now recommend the use of non-invasive treatment methods for pain, such as therapy, prior to medication or surgical management of chronic pain, including chronic back pain.

This is because physical therapy has the power to determine and treat the underlying causes of pain while also improving joint health.

Physical therapy treatment manages chronic back pain with these key methods:

Decreases a person’s inflammatory response. As joint health improves, inflammatory responses decrease. This results in pain reductions.Improves blood and oxygen flow to the affected area. Increased circulation to the affected area promotes healing and ensures the joint has plenty of nutrients to repair itself.
Provides education to prevent your condition from getting worse or returning in the future. Physical therapy provides patients with education about the causes of back pain and how to keep it at bay. This includes instructions on how to maintain proper posture and avoid improper lifting techniques. Knowing these two things alone will reduce the risk of chronic back pain now and in the future.
Provides exercises to improve passive and active range of motion. Both passive and active range of motion exercises prevent joints from becoming fixed, allowing a person to move more with less pain over time. Passive motion also helps those that are in too much pain to move a joint on their own.
Increases muscle strength. As the therapist works to develop an exercise regimen that is safe and effective for the joint, muscle strength and endurance increases. This provides a protective effect.

Are you ready to stop living in pain 24/7?

Chronic back pain is debilitating, and no one should suffer day in and day out without knowing where their next source of relief will come from. Instead of opting for costly and invasive treatments or accepting the health risks from opioids, those living with chronic back pain should consider physical therapy first.

Learn more about how you can achieve a pain-free life by scheduling a consultation with a physical therapist now. Our clinic will match you with a physical therapist who will walk you step by step through a customized treatment program created specifically for your condition. We’re here to help you kick your chronic back pain, and feel great while you’re doing it.

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