Back Pain Portal Blog

Archive for the ‘Inflamation’ Category

Fall can be a demanding time of year. First, there are the social happenings: holiday events, family gatherings. A whole lot of moving around. Then there are the leaves to rake, potted plants to move… weather related changes. I love the yard and garden, even though what I do is limited.

I may I complain about the extra yard work and about finding the extra time for all the holiday hoopla, I am grateful that I can do them.

I lived with constant back pain for years. Being mobility disabled is a real life changer that you may already know. For my sister who is wheel-chair bound from a motorcycle accident, it is a big deal to even go to the store. My niece’s husband who underwent unsuccessful back surgery has days lost to morphine. A friend with unresolved back pain is rarely able to come to community events.

So I keep at it. I keep using the 7 steps on pain-in-my-back.com. When my back starts aching or hurting, it is asking for help, which I willingly give. It is my partner in staying mobile.

A very wise being once told me,  “Take care of what matters.” My mobility matters, so it is worth taking care of. Rather than complain about the inflammation and pain the day after raking leaves, I take arnica and do back stretches. I am grateful that I have the strength and mobility to rake leaves.

A neighbor was having a garage sale and I decided to tag along. Time to clean out the closets and garage! I started at 7 pm Friday for a sale starting 9 am Saturday. Yes, you guessed it, lots of lifting and moving into the wee hours of the night. Not good for the old back.

When the alarm rang Saturday morning, I could hardly move. My lower back was in pain. My legs and arms were sore. But I had to get up, after all that work to get ready!

Once the sale was over at 1 pm, I counted my riches and contemplated what to do to ease my back pain. Should I go straight to bed, or keep moving? I had taken some herbs and an aspirin before sleeping, which I know helped keep the inflammation down, but I was limping and moving slow. My right side was getting tighter and my lower back was really aching.

I decided to go to my 2 pm yoga class at the health club to try to stretch out the muscles that were tight. It worked perfectly. About half way through the class, doing the triangle pose, my lower back  cracked naturally as something went back into alignment. All the stretching helped to release the tightened muscles and bring balance back to my spine. I felt so much better.

I showered, went to the store, then went home and took a nice nap. I was still so sore I had to cancel a Sunday massage, but my back was no longer in pain. By Tuesday I was ready for the next stupid weekend warrior trick!

Well, I had another birthday this week. That how it goes, they just keep coming along. But there is good news, despite my age and my back conditions, I have a very active life!

The truth is that I have less trouble with back pain these days than I did 30 years ago when I was so young! For years after the first car wreck, I had constant back pain, and it seemed like back pain would be a permanent condition. But alas, that is not the case.

Even 5 years ago, I would go down with extreme back pain for weeks at a time, sometimes for months. My back would go out of socket, making it difficult to sleep, and requiring constant chiropractic care.

But the last few years, I’ll get a twinge of back pain, jump into action, using the steps on the main pain-in-my-back.com website, and I’m good to go in a day or two. Sometimes the pain subsides in hours. So the difference as I’ve gotten older is that I made a commitment to take care of my back. I schedule my yoga classes like a meeting, and even give up dinner dates sometimes. It is my physical therapy. Plus, there are things I gotta do on a regular basis. Little things that make a BIG difference.  Here’s what I gotta do:

• Keep the inflammation down with diet and herbs.
• Watch my posture standing and sitting.
• Stretch the muscles to keep things in balance.
• Strengthen the muscles to stay balanced.
• Reduce stress in lots of little ways., and do things that make me happy.
• Get good quality sleep, and enough sleep to be refreshed.
• Get help when needed from a chiropractor or massage therapist.
• Keep my self-care commitment.

See, simple. Over time the injuries can get worse, or can get better. Slow steady progress has reaped great reward for my previously aching back. Happy Birthday, you sweet young thing!

If there is one thing that I would have to say has sustained and helped me the most, it would be yoga. My real progress on bringing back pain and structural problems under my control came when I started doing yoga on a regular basis. A friend of mine who also sat at a desk all day, woke up one morning and couldn’t move. She went into total panic, jumped into surgery, and now is permanently mobility impaired. It was a wake up call for me. It was time for serious intervention.

I took stock of my habits and my chronic pain and the acute pain flareups that would put me under for days or weeks, even months at a time. I committed to counteracting my chronic bad posture habits with yoga 2-4 times a week to stretch and strengthen the muscles and connective tissue. In short order I felt an amazing difference. The weeks I did yoga, the pain subsided. If I got too busy and dropped out this gentle regular restorative exercise, I would usually lapse into chronic, then acute back pain.

Yoga stretching gives the most immediate relief. For me it is like getting a 1 hour massage.

Yoga strengthening takes longer, but it is critically important. Muscle strength is what helps to hold the structure in place. Muscles are strengthened by holding a posture, like standing on one leg, then tilting forward into the dancer pose. You just hold as long as you can, and the time keeps increasing as you get stronger. Leg strengthening really helps balance and mobility.

And last, yoga relaxation at the end of each class is a time when the mind and body settles into a moment of peace. It is incredibly refreshing.

At first some yoga postures will feel odd and may reveal a tightness that is painful. A basic yoga principle to to take it slow and always work at your own pace. You push into the discomfort, but back off the pain. So done properly, it should not be painful. I remember at first that my feet and ankles would restrict certain movement. Those things totally worked out over time. But I am still always pushing into my own places of discomfort to release the tightness.

I recommend going to a class where you can just follow and learn. At my health club, I can go to all the yoga I want. The classes make it fun and keeps it simple. You will find different yoga styles and different teachers, so just find one you like and make sure it is a time you can look forward to .

I found a good overview of yoga at the link below. I hope you’ll check it out and consider treating yourself to yoga classes.

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/yoga/introduction.htm

Just as I was counting my blessings, I went down for the count with the creeping crud, starting with one nostril, into the sinuses, the head, the throat, the chest, etc… you get the picture. We have all been there. It is cold and flu season and air-borne illness can become really serious. Mine got worse at first,  then it took a week before I could breath easy again and stop sniffling and coughing. Oooo, that awful croop cough. I coughed so hard I threw my back out, so then getting out of bed and moving around became a problem. See what I mean about down for the count?

So I have two things to talk about here. First is a little primer on everything I know about fighting colds and flu without drugs, and second, what I did to get my back out of pain.

The best thing for colds and flu is to catch it early, at the first sign, when you kinda know you aren’t feeling too good, but don’t really feel sick yet. At this stage you can often ward it off with vitamin C and the herb echinachea. You can also reduce intake of acid-forming foods, most generally meat and dairy. And be sure to get some good rest.

If you miss this early stage as I did, then it is a different scenario. It will have to run it’s course, but you can shorten the course. The most important thing then is to take the herb elderberry, readily available in liquid cough syrups at the health food stores. This is what is in TamiFlu, but at a higher price.

If it goes into your chest, then you need an expectorant, and my favorite is to make fenugreek tea, an herb readily available in bulk since it is used in cooking. There are other expectorants too that are in cough syrups, either herbal or chemical.

Now onto the back pain issue. A nerve was pinched such that my leg was giving out unexpectedly, depending on position. Then it became inflammed and sore since I wasn’t doing anything about it. I finally realized I needed to take action.  I started by taking anti-inflammatory herbs. Then once I was no longer contagious, I went to my favorite chiropractor who greeted me with cheer and healing energy. I was still sore the next day, but the healing had begun and I started doing my stretches. That made a huge difference and within a few days the pain was totally gone.

I’m telling you, this combination of getting help when needed and following the self-help steps on pain-in-my-back.com really does work. Repeatedly, over and over again. It is a matter of taking responsibility for our own health.