How to Tell if Your Back Pain Can Heal

How to Tell if Your Back Pain Can Heal

In 2013 more than 2.3 million patients were hospitalized and almost 10 million patients were treated for low back pain at an emergency department. Include visits to a physician office for back pain and we end up with 61.9 million healthcare visits for back pain. The dismal outcomes of lower back surgeries (50% failure rate) or the rate (only 29%) of people seeking physical therapy (the most effect treatment) to relieve back pain, tend to make patients feel that there is no hope of back pain relief.

Even the pain medication epidemic in this country is due in a large part to painful conditions like low back pain.

I’m here to assure you that there is hope. That’s why in later chapters we put down some success stories in other people’s words just to try and share how much hope there really is.

As a physical therapist, one of the first things we look at in helping someone with back pain and sciatica is the activity that produces the pain.

The most common activities that cause lower back pain (in order) are:

• Sitting
• Standing
• Walking
• Going up and down the stairs
• Sleeping
• Getting up in the morning
• Getting dressed
• Leaning forward
• Golfing
• Lifting
• Running
• Crossing one leg over the other
• Putting on shoes and socks
• Stooping or kneeling

So, if you have any of these, then we have very, very bad news……There’s HOPE for you 🙂

Truth: If The Pain Is Reproducible, It Is Reducible.

Basically, what that means, is if you have pain with motion, then the pain can be relieved by identifying how the motion is occurring improperly and then improving the motion.

Physical Therapists are movement and musculoskeletal experts.

Our entire job is to improve human motion in order to relieve pain.  So, if you have pain with motion, there is hope for you.

If your pain is constant and does not change at all with motion, it is more difficult and could be a serious condition for which you would a physician’s evaluation.

Here’s the deal… everyone’s body has the ability to heal itself if given the correct environment.

When someone has pain with motion and it is not healing on its own, the motion is the cause of the pain.  We must look at the motion and identify what parts of the body are not moving optimally.

When parts of the body do not move properly, they place stress on other parts of the body (the lower back, for instance).

All lower back pain can heal, no matter what type or cause.

The challenge is finding the type and the cause.

This can be done, and there is hope!

Check out our Herniated Disc Treatment page: Effective Disc Herniation Treatment | Superior Physical Therapy

Read the research on Back and joint pain here:  BMUS: The Burden of Musculoskeletal Diseases in the United States | Prevalence, Societal and Economic Cost