It is difficult to find an adult who at least once has not felt pain in the lower back, and some of these painful sensations do not go away day or night, impairing their quality of life and forcing them to swallow armfuls of painkillers. It is unfortunate, but most people who suffer from chronic low back pain do nothing to treat it, believing that it is impossible to cure this condition and that it is not necessary.
How wrong they are! After all, there is an effective treatment for back pain. And for that you don't even need to look for famous doctors and modern clinics. Just be patient, set a goal and start the daily therapeutic procedures. Of course, this is not a quick process, but the result in the form of no severe back pain is sure to please you.
So let's look at the main causes of low back pain and methods of dealing with them.
Why does your lower back hurt?
There is an entire carriage and a small cart that causes pain in the lower back. They can be divided into two parts - primary and secondary pain syndromes.
primary back pain
With primary pain syndrome in the lower back, pathological changes develop mainly in the spinal tissues themselves - they are degenerative dystrophic diseases that start in the intervertebral discs, gradually affecting the vertebrae and surrounding soft tissue. Probably everyone knows diseases like osteochondrosis, spondyloarthrosis and spondylosis. These pathologies develop gradually, accompanied by chronic pain syndrome and with the development of complications (compression of the nerve roots, protrusion or hernia of the intervertebral disc, spinal cord compression), an acute pain attack develops, which requires medical attention. urgent .
Degenerative dystrophic changes in the spine and their consequences are the cause of low back pain in more than 90% of cases.
secondary back pain
Secondary back pain can be caused not only by diseases of the musculoskeletal system, but also by pathologies of Organs internal organs:
- congenital or acquired pathology of the musculoskeletal system - pathological curves of the spine, flat feet, etc . ;
- rheumatologic and systemic diseases (ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis deformans, reactive arthritis, systemic scleroderma, vasculitis, lupus erythematosus, etc. );
- metabolic pathology and endocrinological disorders in which the normal structure of bone tissue is disrupted - osteoporosis, hyperparathyroidism, osteomalacia;
- malignant and benign neoplastic lesions of vertebrae and surrounding tissues (myeloma, lymphomas, osteosarcomas, metastatic tumors);
- traumatic damage to spinal tissues (stretching of muscles, ligaments, compression, and other vertebral fractures);
- inflammatory lesions of lower back muscles - myositis;
- gynecological diseases;
- urinary tract pathology (pyelonephritis, urolithiasis, etc. );
- diseases of Organs abdominal organs (acute appendicitis, pancreatitis, intestinal lesions).
This article deals with the treatment of primary back pain, which occurs in most cases. But before proceeding with therapeutic measures, it is imperative to visit a doctor to rule out more serious causes of low back pain.
Basic principles of low back pain management
If you are looking for an answer to the question of how to treat low back pain, then the first answer is that the treatment must be comprehensive, injections and pills alone will likely not be able to help you. Basically, drugs are used to aggravate the disease and, after the pain stops, they start to act more actively, for example, corrective gymnastics, physiotherapy, massage, manual treatment, traditional medicine, etc.
conservative therapy
drug treatment
If your lower back hurts a lot, you can't go without medication. In the treatment of back pain, several groups of medications are used. The main ones are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which also have powerful analgesic effects. These medications are used both internally (injections, pills) and locally (patches, ointments, creams, gels). It should be clarified that drugs from the group of NSAIDs, although they perfectly eliminate the symptoms of the disease, do not affect its course, making it impossible to treat osteochondrosis with anti-inflammatory drugs alone.
Analgesics and anti-inflammatory drugs work well for pain relief but do not address the underlying cause.
Muscle relaxants should be included in the drug therapy complex. These medications eliminate the pathological spasm of skeletal muscles in the lower back (pathogenetic treatment of lower back pain), which greatly relieves the pain.
A good help in treating back pain caused by pinching or inflammation of the spinal nerve roots are B vitamins, which strengthen and help repair damaged areas of nerve tissue.
In order to establish nutrition and metabolic processes in the affected tissues of the spine, antiplatelet agents, nicotinic acid, are used.
If the pain is very severe, local anesthetics are used for regional blocks, which allow you to temporarily alleviate the pain while steps are taken to eliminate its cause.
Physiotherapy
Exercise therapy is prescribed only after the pain has disappeared, with exacerbation contraindicated. The key to success is regular training. Exercises to strengthen your back muscles should be done every day. It is ideal if such a complex is selected for you by a certified physical therapist and will teach you all the subtleties of performing exercises.
As a last resort, you can learn it yourself (you can find a large number of videos with specific examples of moves). The main thing to be guided when doing gymnastics is the absence of pain. If the movement causes pain in the lower back, reduce its range or abandon it completely. Doing this at home can help you gradually strengthen your back muscles and relieve pain.
Massage
The health benefits of back massage can hardly be overestimated. The main thing is that it is done correctly and competently. And for that, first and foremost, you need to find a good, experienced and certified massage therapist.
Massage activates blood circulation processes in damaged tissues, contributes to their nutrition and elimination of toxic substances. Massage, like exercise therapy, is performed only outside the framework of disease exacerbation.
physiotherapy procedures
The treatment and prevention of low back pain involves a wide variety of physical therapy treatments. All of them aim to prevent degenerative processes in the spine and renew damaged structures.
Most often used in the treatment of low back pain:
- magnetotherapy;
- laser treatment;
- ultrasound therapy;
- electrophoresis;
- thermal procedures;
- balneotherapy;
- mud wraps;
- paraffin and ozokerite applications.
Surgery
Lumbar spine osteochondrosis operations are only performed in extreme cases, as such manipulations present a very high risk. Operate only on patients with intervertebral hernias that cause constant pain or patients with signs of spinal cord compression.
There are many methods of such operations - from open neurosurgical surgery to remove a diseased disc to endoscopic and robotic interventions with replacement of a damaged disc with artificial or bioengineered prostheses.
Unconventional treatments
Acupuncture
Needle prick treatment has been used since ancient times to fight various diseases. Modern acupuncture is an effective alternative treatment for back pain. Furthermore, conventional acupuncture today is complemented by the introduction of several biologically active substances at the puncture site, by the action of a magnet or laser, which further increases the technique's effectiveness.
Manual therapy
It is widely used in the treatment of osteochondrosis and its consequences. The end result is manual action on the spine, defining the dislocated vertebrae, releasing the nerves from compression and, as a result, eliminating pain. But it should be noted that these are quite dangerous treatment methods and only a certified chiropractor should perform such techniques.
popular recipes
Perhaps the treatment of low back pain with folk remedies is very popular among the population due to its simplicity, naturalness and availability of ingredients for recipes, great experience in its use and effectiveness. There are many alternative treatment recipes, consider the most popular ones.
Horse chestnut ointment is prepared as follows. Grind the powdered chestnut herb and add to the fat and camphor oil in equal proportions. You can lubricate or apply a compress with this ointment twice a day until the pain goes away.
Mix the grated radish or horseradish with sour cream or heavy cream and apply to the painful lower back in the form of a compress. Wrap yourself in a woolen shawl and go to bed. Repeat this procedure until the pain subsides.
For the next recipe, you will need dried burdock leaves. Soak them in boiling water and place them on the back, wrap them in a warm cloth. Keep the compress for at least 1 hour.
Rubbing can help with back pain. To do this you need to make the following mix. It is necessary to mix cologne, for example, triple, a bottle of iodine solution, valerian tincture and dry red pepper. Next, you need to rub the wound well with the mixture and wrap it with a warm cloth overnight.
Popular prescriptions relieve back pain well, but their use is only allowed with the approval of a doctor.
There are more than a dozen, and perhaps more than a hundred, traditional medicine recipes. But in each case, before using them, you need to consult a doctor - if this particular prescription is contraindicated for you.
If you have lower back pain and don't know where to start treating it, first see a doctor who will establish the true cause of the pain. Only after that, through joint efforts (yours and your specialist), will you be able to overcome the disease and pain.