How do you know if your back pain has become chronic?
All of us have pulled a back muscle at some point, needing to spend a day or two cozied up to an ice pack and a heating pad. But when serious back and lower body pain, as well as stiffness or numbness problems, make it hard to function, you may well have sciatica.
What is sciatica?
When nerves in your lower back become pinched or compressed, the resulting pain, tingling and numbness affect your back, buttocks, groin and legs. Often, you’ll feel it on one side only.
Several underlying causes can result in this nerve compression in your lower back. In most cases, it’s a bone spur or herniated disc pressing into the nerve, but sciatica has also been known to occur when a tumor grows in the area, or when there’s spinal degeneration and narrowing, which can happen with age.
What types of physical therapy treat back pain and sciatica?
Working on strength, flexibility and circulation are all crucial components to treating sciatic back and lower body pain. Among the most common categories of treatments for sciatica in physical therapy are:
- Low-impact aerobics, to encourage circulation of nutrients and body fluids (as well pain-killing endorphins) to the areas that need it most. Most aerobic activity can be done outside of your physical therapy session, including walking or swimming, but your physical therapist can show you methods to work around your sciatic stiffness and pain as you do so.
- Stretching exercises, to boost flexibility. Sciatica often causes spasms, tightness and limited range of motion in your back and legs. Various moves, such as hamstring stretches and lower-back moves like the “cobra” or the sitting torso twist, will loosen muscles and boost mobility.
- Strength building moves, to tone the tendons, ligaments and columns that support your spine. Working your abs, hips and glutes will all result in a stronger core that resists lower back pain and sciatica.
What can physical therapy do to treat my back pain and sciatica?
Back and neck pain are primary diagnosis that we see in our clinic. We have defined our skills in this area with a great understanding of both acute and chronic back pain, how to get it under control, and how to continue living without it keeping you from life.
Our best advice if you are having back pain that has not been relieved with ice, painkillers, exercise or stretching within the first 2 weeks after it started is to not wait to walk through our door. The quicker we can get into the source of your pain the faster your recovery. What if you’ve been having pain for year or far more? Well, you might be surprised to know that there is still hope. Often times we find that patients who have had pain for years have yet to try certain stretching, manual therapy and traction that our clinic provides. In our facility the 3D Active trac allows us to “custom fit” your pain while on traction/decompression. This offers you the greatest advantage as we relieve the pressure that is pressing on your disc and nerve causing you that unbearable pain.
What about an MRI or xray? Don’t you need that first? The answer is no. Insurance companies are recognizing the cost to this is great not only for them but often times you as the patient. Physical therapists are educated in diagnosing the source of your nerve pain without an MRI or Xray based to the pattern of your pain. Physical therapists and their Assistants in our clinic work with back and neck pain so frequently that they understand how your body should be responding to the treatment based on your evaluation and are largely successful, however, we also recognize when the time is necessary to see if there is more going on and at that time work closely with your doctor to assure that imaging is taken to further evaluate if you are not making progress in your pain relief.