Infinite Ideas - Back Pain: Relief and Remedies to Ease Back Problems

Back pain

Relief and remedies to ease back problems

Infinite Ideas with Dr Ruth Chambers

Previously published in paperback as Beat back pain

7. Keeping active

Addicted to exercise? Craving your regular fix? If not, you should be. Exercise on as many days per week as possible and avoid withdrawal symptoms altogether with a daily workout.

Binge exercising at the weekends is okay, but not as good as regular daily activity. So indulge in multiple rounds of golf or sets of tennis, but walk, cycle or go to the gym meantime.

Do we have to?

Far too many people are fat slobs. Fifty years ago youd have used as much energy in your job or at home doing the domestic work as if you were running a marathon race every single week. How times have changed! The average person now watches over 26 hours of television a week (thats one for every mile). Children spend many hours watching videos or playing computer games (and adults too) rather than getting off their butt and running about. We use cars to travel everywhere because we are so short of time. Many jobs involve sitting at a desk, and most of us get no exercise at work other than regular visits to the coffee machine and the morning trek to pick up the doughnuts.

On the other hand, we stuff ourselves with food and drink as much as we ever did. So, even though we are taking far less exercise, we are still packing in just as many calories. Result? Were more likely to be overweight or obese these days. And being inactive increases your risk of heart disease and stroke. So do something about it.

Keep active

Thats a key message for beating back pain. This means keep doing normal everyday activities if youve got back pain, not sitting around resting. You dont have to be in the front row of a rugby scrum or do a two-hour workout in the gym, but you do have to put more into in than the odd Roger Moore-esque heavy-duty eyebrow lift.

Build up slowly

Increase the amount of exercise you do each day gradually blitzing it will only lead to injury. Dont go for sports that involve twisting, like hockey and squash, until you have already regained some fitness/suppleness and feel your back can take it.

Work towards doing 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity on at least five

days of the week. The 30 minutes can be accumulated throughout the day in

1015 minute bouts. Moderate intensity means breathing slightly harder than normal but still being within your comfort zone. You should be able to continue the activity whilst talking at the same time. That will please the gossips amongst you!

Extend some of your exercise sessions to 45 minutes or more. This will encourage your body to use some of your fat stores as a source of energy.

Cut down the amount of time you spend sitting about

Try not to sit down for more than 30 minutes at a time. That might mean cutting down on those three-hour videos or pause the video and take a walking break.

Use large muscle groups

The best activities for boosting your weight loss and fitness are those involving large muscle groups. These are mainly aerobic exercises: walking, running, swimming or cycling. You can read up on how much energy various exercises use, given as the equivalent in calories per hour.

Doing weight-bearing exercises, such as walking and climbing a hill (or mountain or even the stairs!), helps to build up your muscles. This maintains your strength and is a good way to keep your back muscles well honed. Different types of exercise suit different people so try various activities to find out what suits your back best.

Dont overdo it

Pace yourself. As a new convert to the benefits of exercise it is tempting to go overboard and be exercising every spare minute of your day. You wont be able to keep it up, youll get bored and youll slink back to the TV or the pub. Its not all or nothing settle for a halfway position and enjoy the best of both worlds.

How did it go?

QSounds like Im going to have to grit my teeth and make myself do some regular exercise, even if its bad weather and I dont feel like it. Wheres the fun in that?

AYou wont carry on with regular exercise unless you enjoy doing it or youre a masochist. So experiment with what kind of exercise fits your lifestyle, and what you like doing. When exercise is a pleasure, fitness is easy. A good spin-off might be the new friends you meet whilst doing your new physical activity. And the happier you are, the better your back will be.

QIm so injury-prone I spend more time in the club bar than on the pitch. Have you any tips on making sure that I dont end up worse off from doing exercise than I started out?

AIf youre doing any sport, you need to warm up first. And cool down slowly at the end of a game by doing a few exercises before resting. Dont just slump in a chair afterwards. Avoid exercise that jars your spine, like jogging on hard pavements and avoid the jars in the pub afterwards!

Heres an idea for you

Increase the amount of activity in your daily routine. Do more gardening, or do it with more gusto actually digging over the garden as often as the experts suggest. When you go shopping, park your car further away, or walk to the shops instead of driving for small items that you can easily carry. Tackle your housework with more effort spring clean your rooms more than once a decade, or tidy out the garage and shed and keep them in order in future. Dont pay someone else to do the decorating or gardening for you do it yourself for the extra activity and satisfaction youll get.

Defining idea

Muscles come and go. Flab lasts.

BILL VAUGHAN, American journalist

8. Home goals

Right, the object of this exercise is to prevent and treat your back problems. Thats your goal. Youll have to work at it. But it will be worth it.

Learn exercises to treat yourself and avoid time off work, expensive medicines or costly therapy. Its amazing what you can do with a wall, a floor and the know-how.

Exercises for a slipped disc

Youll need to concentrate on this one. If your pain is in the centre of your lumbar spine (if it is, the pain travels from the centre of your back around your waistline area), you should lie on the floor with your hands under your shoulders. Make sure you are face-down first. Then push yourself up until your arms are straight, leaving your hips on the floor. At the ninth or tenth movement, you should try to relax the muscles around your lumbar spine so that your hips sag to the floor. Try lying on your front for 1520 minutes while youre watching television or reading. Alternatively, if you have neck problems too or you cant get down on the floor, you can stand astride (standing upright with your legs straight and feet apart by 50 cm or so) and lean backwards ten times with your hands on your waist.

If your pain spreads down one side of your body into your bottom, thigh or lower leg you should try to compress your spine on the painful side. Leaning this way may seem illogical the natural tendency is to lean away from the painful side or to slouch in a chair, as these postures relieve pressure on your nerve roots but such relief is only temporary and hinders your recovery by keeping the disc out of position.

Now stand astride beside a wall with the painful side away from it, resting your elbow against the wall. Then glide your hips in towards the wall ten times. So, if your back pain is sited on your left side, lean to the left (and similarly for the right). The pain should lessen, or move upwards and towards the centre of your back. If this standing exercise doesnt do the business, there is an alternative. Lie face-down on the floor with your arms in the push-up position. Now make a sideways kink in your spine with your hips shifted away from the painful side and do ten push-ups with first bent and then straightened arms, leaving your hips on the floor. Do ten of these movements every hour for the first two days, to try to move the disc back into a central position.