SELF-HELP PREVENTION: BACK PAIN
What is it?
Pain in the back, usually low down. According to statistics 5 per cent of the population of Europe suffers from back complaints at any one time. In the UK back troubles cause the loss of more hours’ work than do strikes and eight out of ten adults will seek medical help for back pain at some time in their lives. Approximately 88,000 people in the UK are absent from work because of back pain on any one day.
Back pain can be acute, even putting the person to bed for a few days, or chronic-making life miserable for years.
What causes it?
• Psychological stress. Many people with back pain are highly stressed. Treat the stress and their back pain goes.
• Injury. This is by far the commonest physical cause of back pain. A sudden, twisting injury, a blow, a fall from a height or the strain of lifting a heavy object wrongly can all cause an injury that produces back pain at the time or later.
• Chronic trauma results from sleeping for years on a poor mattress.
• Poor posture. Humans are upright creatures but the balance of the bones and muscles in the back is delicate – a combination of leverage, gravity and muscular contraction helps keep the system in normal balance. Also, the lower-back muscles seem to be rather weak to do anything very heavy. Sedentary occupations and a lack of physical fitness worsen this state further. A back that is continually subjected to mild strain also shows more signs of osteoarthritis later in life. Often the person displays poor posture, flat feet, a middle-aged tummy bulge and yet is free from symptoms until some, often quite minor, trauma breaks the camel’s back, as it were.
• High-heeled and platform shoes are other culprits. They throw the body’s centre of gravity forwards, alter the angle of the pelvis and force the spine to adjust to a totally new balance position.
• Poor lifting technique. Most people forget how vulnerable the back is and simply bend forward from the waist when lifting. This puts very considerable strains on the back.
• Slipped disc. This is the commonest cause of severe back pain. About one in every 200 people is affected in a year, and two-thirds of them are men. The pain comes on suddenly and the sufferer finds it almost impossible to move freely. Many people find that the only way to get relief is to lie flat on the floor or on a bed. Rest is the best cure but local heat and painkillers are also helpful. Nine out of ten people experiencing disc pain for the first time will be better after three weeks in bed. An osteopath can often help at the early extreme-pain stage. If these measures don’t produce relief, or if there are complications, surgery can be the answer, but only about one in 1,000 back-pain sufferers need surgery.
• Standing in a fixed position for too long can also be a cause of back pain. This can occur at work or, for example, when ironing, cooking or washing up.
• Badly designed chairs or car seats are a hazard.
• With today’s craze for running and jogging there is a real danger of back injury if you do not wear properly constructed sports shoes. These are made with highly shock-absorbent soles that take most of the punishment from the hard surface on which you are running
• Insufficient exercise. This leads to weak back muscles and makes the back more liable to injury.
*106/72/5*
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Tags: General health