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APRIL 3, 2020
|IN BACK PAIN
|BY PRI
There are many forms of back pain and many causes for it. There’s lower back pain, upper back pain, sciatic nerve pan, the pain of lumbago, the pain of a bulging or herniated disc, and the pain resulting from simple strain. Small wonder, then, that around 80% of people will experience back pain at some point in their lives.
Unfortunately, simply knowing that back pain is common won’t help you when yours flares up. Acute back pain can be debilitating enough to put you flat on your aching back. Even when it’s not quite as bad as that, it can make simply moving around and performing routine tasks an excruciating ordeal.
For that reason, it pays to understand what can be done to relieve acute back pain.
Heat isn’t always the answer to acute back pain, but depending on the underlying cause, it can be. Heat can prove beneficial when the pain is coming from spasms, stiffness, or over-exertion (these are sometimes manifestations of other underlying issues.) You can apply heat via various methods including a heating pad or warm bath, and it sometimes proves especially efficacious in combination with medication (for more on medication, see below.)
Meditation isn’t the first recourse many people would think of as a response to a physical complaint. There is abundant research, however, to show that it contributes to general health and well being, and studies have begun to emerge that show its usefulness in addressing specific conditions.
One of those conditions is back pain. In 2015, doctors studied 88 patients with this complaint. After learning meditation over the course of eight sessions, they reported a marked decrease in their discomfort. (The study looked at individuals with chronic back pain, but there would appear to be no reason to doubt the results are generalizable to individuals with acute back pain as well.)
The trick here, of course, is that acute back pain can make it harder to meditate, but that’s a difficulty you can overcome with practice. Meditation is a form of therapy that’s free, a person can do for himself anywhere and anytime, and that can serve as a complement to any other form of therapy or treatment.
Whether it’s over-the-counter or prescribed, medication can sometimes relieve acute back pain. A medication regimen should generally include an anti-inflammatory medicine as inflammation is a frequent contributor to pain. Medication does carry with it the risks of diminished effectiveness, dependency, and other issues if taken for an extended period of time, and if you find yourself using an anti-inflammatory drug or any other pain-fighting medication for very long, you should be doing so in consultation with your physician.
