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Controlling Back Pain by Yourself
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This page is for people who need immediate relief from back pain and is intended as temporary help until longer-term measures can be taken.It shows how to relax back muscle spasms by reconditioning the neuromuscular control mechanism of back spasms. Without reconditioning that neuromuscular mechanism, anything else done can produce only a temporary improvement -- which is why physical therapy typically takes so long and why chiropractors have posters in their offices that speak of "the chiropractic lifestyle".
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Bulging discs, sciatica, spinal misalignment and facet joint syndrome all result from and are secondary to excessive back muscle tension. Relieving back muscle spasms relieves the other conditions (some will resolve immediately; others take days or weeks to resolve once the compression forces abate).
Back spasms can be brought under control by a few repetitions the procedures shown here, although a session with a clinical somatic educator produces a much faster improvement than a few repetitions of what's shown, here. Once the emergency is over, follow with self-help instruction for long-term improvement. The explanation of the process, which is a series of slow, soft movement actions done repeatedly, appears below the video links. Nothing is for everybody -- but you may want to bookmark this page, now, so you can return to it, should you leave it without taking action.
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THE VIDEO, ABOVE, MAY BE YOUR WAKE-UP CALL. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
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Back Muscle Spasm / Emergency Back Self-Care BasicsMost back pain emergencies arise from muscle spasms triggered by minor movements.Short-term Effects: pain, arrested movement, restricted breathing, nerve pain (e.g., sciatica). Long-term Effects: degenerative disc disease, spondylolisthesis, spinal arthritis, osteophytes (bone spurs) |
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This page contains video instruction for relief from two levels of back pain emergency: The most common advice I see given for CATEGORY 1 is, "Lie down and don't move." Better advice is, "Lie down and do very gentle, wavelike spinal motions to loosen the spasm and free your breathing." NOTE: If you have numbness or pain in your legs or feet, do only the CATEGORY 1 movement sequence and consult a physician to rule out severe disc problems. You may do the sequence repeatedly.
see also:
"Understanding and Overcoming Lifting Injuries"
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EXPLANATIONUnless you have had a violent accident, your back pain, whether sudden or chronic, has been coming for a very long time. Muscular tension builds up for a long time before crossing the point of no return and becoming a back spasm. Then, like the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back," a small movement can trigger a crisis: muscle spasm.What causes back spasms? What controls muscular tension? The answer may be obvious to you: your brain, the master control center for your muscles; your brain causes your muscles to go into spasm. Why?
Here, the answer may not seem so obvious -- until you understand it: conditioning. Your brain controls your muscles. Your brain gets conditioned through repetition: repeated overuse, repeated overstrain, repeated stress. Your brain learns to hold muscles tight until you can no longer relax them. It's what is meant by "nervous tension." At that point, your tight back no longer comes from bending or lifting, but from a tension habit stored in your brain. You're always tight, on the verge of spasm or in spasm. The problem isn't exactly "all in your head" -- but it is in your brain.
With tingling or numbness, the muscles of your back are so tight that they are pulling your vertebrae (the bones of your spine) so close that they trap and pinch nerves. That is the origin of sciatica.
So the problem is simpler than you might expect. You probably do not have a medical problem; you probably have a conditioning problem. By gaining control of those muscles' movements, you end the pain of spasms. You also free the nerves from pressure and end the symptoms of a pinched nerve.
To get control of muscle spasms takes a particular approach -- and neither strengthening nor stretching nor manipulation is that approach. That approach involves recapturing control of muscles from involuntary reflexes through reclaiming control of movement -- the approach shown here. Muscular spasticity can be ended fairly quickly -- your past experience with other treatment methods notwithstanding.
This view is understandable -- but incorrect. Tight muscles are tired muscles, and tired muscles feel weak and seem to need strengthening. Tight muscles are shortened muscles, and shortened muscles seem to need stretching. Tight muscles cause postural changes, and postural changes imply the need for strengthening and stretching.
But the problem isn't weakness or muscles in need of stretching; it's muscular overactivity and muscle fatigue (tiredness and soreness).
In that way, common therapeutic methods -- psychological, manipulative, many surgeries, therapeutic exercises in general -- use models that lead people to misunderstand (or miss a part of) the situation. They concentrate on muscles instead of on the brain-level control of muscles.
It's simple: When muscles relax, they rest and get refreshed (feel stronger); they lengthen out (no longer seem to need stretching). With normalized muscular functioning, alignment improves, movement normalizes, comfort returns.
A more direct approach, then, is to improve muscular control. People with back pain generally need a brain-muscle approach -- either to avoid surgery or after surgery.
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Muscular ControlMuscular control has two parts: the ability to regulate muscular tension (regulate strength and relaxation) and the ability to sense muscular tension. Both abilities are needed.Therapeutic methods typically neglect the sensory awareness part of control. Too often, people are given therapeutic exercises but no instructions in how to do them (e.g., slowly or maintaining awareness of the sensations of movement), only what to do (e.g., "Do abdominal strengthening exercises," i.e., crunches). A therapist may say, "These are strengthening exercises," so people go for strength instead of coordinated control; they go for repetitions instead of the feeling of the movement. That's why most therapeutic methods don't work very well. To the extent that they do work, they do so through inadvertent improvement of muscular control. If you can't feel how to control your muscles, you can't control them. You need to improve your ability both to feel and to control your muscles. Then, they let go. |
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First Aid for Back Pain
If you do these movements mechanically (i.e., without sensing the location of the muscular effort), if you do them too quickly or too hard, you deprive yourself of the sensations needed to gain control over your muscle tension; you need to feel what you are doing. You get better results by doing "too little" than by doing too much. Never cause yourself to cringe from fear or pain (some soreness is inevitable); if you cringe, do a smaller movement. Move more slowly, more gently.
NOTE: You may experience soreness for a few hours after doing these exercises -- and the main back pain associated with movement will have decreased. Evaluate the effects not by the absence or presence of soreness, but by your improvement of movement and posture and the decrease of the main pain. With repetitions, the soreness and the main pain continuously decrease. Stick with it -- or progress to one of the Programs for Long-term Recovery named, below.
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CATEGORY 1
Twelve-minute Emergency Back Care from Lawrence Gold on Vimeo. Fast help for back spasm emergencies. Instruction for relaxing spastic muscles to recover comfort and movement. Gentle somatic movement exercise. NEXT STEP: 17-Minute First Aid for Back Pain Programs for Long-term Recovery :
ARTICLE: Back Pain, Therapeutics and Somatics
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CATEGORY 2
17 Minute First Aid for Back Pain from Lawrence Gold on Vimeo. This seventeen minute video shows and guides you through the second procedure for emergency back care of lower back pain. This is a recording of an actual session with a client, so you can hear his feedback as the session proceeds.
Programs for Long-Term Recovery :
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| R E S O U R C E S
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| PRACTITIONERS WORLD-WIDE | ||||
| PROFESSIONAL TRAINING |
BASIC BOOK
Case Studies, Theory, Exercises |
GUIDED SELF-CARE PROGRAM PREVIEWS |
GUIDED SELF-CARE PROGRAM ACCESS
Transformational Exercises |
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| The Association for Hanna Somatic Education | Somatics: ReAwakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health
by Thomas Hanna, Ph.D. |
Free Yourself from Back Pain
by Lawrence Gold, C.H.S.E.
BOOK/eBOOK: ABUNDANTLY ILLUSTRATED The Cat Stretch : Overcoming the Myth of Aging AUDIO CD SET / DOWNLOAD |
Free Yourself from Back Pain
by Lawrence Gold, C.H.S.E.
AUDIO CD SET / DOWNLOAD
OTHER PROGRAMS AVAILABLE FOR A WIDE RANGE OF CONDITIONS.
CLICK THIS LINK. |
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