Modernizing Our Approach to Lower Back Pain
Modernizing Our Approach to Low Back Pain- By Jonathan Tay, Physiotherapist
Almost everyone has experienced low back pain in their lifetime. 84% of adults actually. It’s the number one cause of disability and probably the one you hear yourself or someone you know complain about. So what should we do about it? It’s easy to jump into solutions before we figure out the problem first, so as with all things, let’s ask the question, what contributes to low back pain? Cue a cheesy but useful infographic:
I’m a big believer in holistic care but that word holistic often gets conflated with some fluffy idea of being well balanced or that you’re doing everything all at once. Really what you should be looking at is, what specific things are contributing to pain? Input = output right?
If we are to look at the big picture, typically the easiest thing to nail down are these three categories: structural stress (from bad mechanics, posture, movement strain), inflammatory conditions (nutrition and metabolic health), and emotional stress (which can amplify pain signals in the brain pathway)
So how do you fix it?
Many of my patients have heard me preach now for the umpteenth time: we loosen what's tight and strengthen what’s weak. We find out what’s “in your cup” as shown above, and start addressing them. Maybe it’s the way you’re lifting your kid, maybe you need to avoid that painful position in the gym for now (not forever) or maybe you’ve got the dreaded diagnosis of osteoarthritis (which by the way, benefits a ton from therapy and exercise). And when you get a little stronger it’s time to build up and gradually expose yourself to those positions again in a systematic way so we reduce those flare-ups, but you’ve got to live your life again eventually.
