Up to 80 percent of people around the world experience back pain every year. Moreover, both women and men, both children and adults, both bookworms and athletes. Therefore, it is simply impossible to immediately answer the question of why the back hurts and what to do: there are no single reasons for the occurrence of unpleasant sensations, and therefore, ways to eliminate them.
The situation is complicated by the fact that a person of the XNUMXst century is so busy that he does not always pay due attention to this problem. He does not understand the degree of danger of the symptom and does not turn to specialists at the first ailments. And this is in vain! After all, back pain is not only unpleasant sensations, but also a reason for serious pathological processes in many internal organs and muscles of the human body.
Simple neck pain can cause severe headaches and dizziness, and sometimes vision and hearing problems. Diseases of the thoracic spine often lead to breathing difficulties and heart failure. Lower back pain can be a harbinger of kidney problems, and in men, impotence.
Thus, back pain is a serious cause for concern. Now this is not just a nuisance for a person, with the accompanying bad mood and restrictions in an active lifestyle, it is a huge problem that entails the most serious consequences. At the moment, this is one of the most common causes of temporary disability, and in advanced cases, even disability.
Why is this punishment to me?
There can be many reasons for pathology. The most common of them is muscle overstrain, which is absolutely not surprising in our time. Even if you are not involved in powerlifting and other serious sports involving muscle stress, rest assured that your back is still stressed every day: while walking, sitting at the computer and even sleeping on a soft bed.
The correct functioning of our spine is simply impossible without the well-coordinated work of the back muscles, which help a person to keep himself in an upright position, fixing the vertebrae together.
Any long-term static stress can stress the muscles.
An example of this would be the habit of carrying a heavy bag on one shoulder or sitting unevenly at your desk. The muscles involved in these processes begin to feel tension over time, and subsequently tend to remain in such an incorrect position. As they say, if you do not want a hump, do not be humped!
Remember, if you do not regularly give the muscles the required dose of load, they begin to lose their ability to contract and become weak, which means they cannot fulfill their task – to keep the spine in the correct position.
Thus, the world of new technologies and discoveries not only made life easier for mankind, but also provoked a new, progressive “disease of civilization” – hypodynamia. It is the source of many ills, including back pain. It was not for nothing that the famous philosopher of ancient Greece Aristotle said that without movement there is no life!
Another cause of pain is osteochondrosis – the most common disease in which discomfort is directly felt, back stiffness during movement and lifting something; numbness of the limbs; muscle spasms; headaches and dizziness and even pain in the region of the heart.
An equally popular problem is herniated discs… This disease occurs most often in people over 40 years old, when muscle and connective tissues are subject to decomposition. With age, the vertebrae come closer together and seem to push each other, forcing them to bulge out of the spinal column. This leads to compression of the nerves, and as a result, to acute pain.
Back pain can also result from poor posture: scoliosis and schizophrenia… The first disease is a curvature of the spine to the right or left relative to its axis. Its main companion is the protruding shoulder blade or ribs on one side. Kyphosis, a different stoop, Is an excessive bending of the spine in the thoracic region. In other words, in this case, the symmetry of the body is preserved.
“Since a huge number of nerves pass through the spine, dislocations, subluxations, fractures, herniated intervertebral discs disrupt nerve conduction and pinch blood vessels. This becomes the cause of the pain syndrome. If the back pain is regular and severe, it is possible that sleep or the work of some internal organs is disturbed, and severe headaches occur, then you need to seek help from a specialist – a neurologist, osteopath or chiropractor. To establish the exact cause of the pain, it is necessary to undergo an examination. Usually, MRI is prescribed for those parts of the spine in which the pain is most pronounced, ”explains Sergey Erchenko, osteopathic physician, neurologist at the Austrian health center Verba Mayr.
The cause of acute lower back pain can be sciatica – a disease of the lumbar spine, which is expressed in the defeat of the intervertebral discs, and later the vertebral tissues themselves.
A less common cause of pain is various chronic diseases. For example, with spondylolisthesis, part of one of the vertebrae changes, which is why it is superimposed on the lower one, bulging forward or backward. And ankylosing spondylitis mainly occurs due to inflammation of the joints and ligaments of the spine and is manifested by pain and stiffness in the lower back, in the hips and constant muscle tension.
In about 0,7% of patients with back pain, cancers are subsequently found. Moreover, it can be cancer, which is located in the spine itself or in other organs, and then spread to it.
And one of the rarest causes (0,01%) of such pain is infection. Most often, it enters the spine through the bloodstream from other parts of the body (for example, from the urinary tract).
What am I to do with this misfortune?
There are many different methods of preventing and treating painful sensations.
First, start doing regular physical activity. Movement is life! And there is no need to say that there is no time.
Walk on foot… Get out of the house early and walk to work, or at least park your car in the farthest parking spot from the entrance, and as you walk to the door, be glad that you are gradually becoming healthy. Remember, walking is not only a great way to activate all muscles (including the back), but also an excellent method of training for blood vessels, because it improves blood circulation. As a result, the work of the lungs becomes more efficient, which contributes to the maximum filling of the blood with oxygen. The human body receives a sufficient amount of nutrients, and this, in turn, speeds up metabolic processes, improves digestion and much more.
Avoid elevators and escalators. Climbing stairs puts the muscles in your legs, back, and abdominals to work, which strengthens your thighs, buttocks, and calf muscles, increases lung capacity, and even drops blood cholesterol.
Exercise in the morning. Everyone has tried to instill this habit since childhood, and few have succeeded. But the benefits of 15 minutes of morning activity are enormous. First of all, it allows you to “wake up” the human brain and activate the nervous system. After that, light exercises tone the muscles of the body and lift the mood. And if you include specialized exercises in the morning complex, then you can work out individual muscle groups, improve physical qualities such as strength, endurance, speed, flexibility and coordination. Morning exercises will help maintain muscle tone, as it will make up for the lack of physical work.
Get a healthy hobby. These can be active types of recreation and entertainment. Why not add cycling or horse riding to your leisure time? What about beach volleyball or badminton? Maybe you prefer picking berries and mushrooms? By and large, it doesn’t matter! All this is physical activity.
A sports lifestyle improves the tone of the body, strengthens the immune system, gives beauty, health and longevity
But you don’t have to be a professional athlete to keep yourself in good shape. You can work out, go to the gym or the pool. The most important thing is the regularity of physical activity. Then the health benefits will be palpable.
However, if unbearable pain has already overtaken you, then you can turn to pain relievers, which have a warming, cooling, analgesic and resorbing effect. It should be noted that they all have a bad effect on the stomach and can be the cause of allergies. If the disease is severe, more powerful drugs are recommended: diclofenac, naproxen, etodalac, nabumetone, etc. Most often they take the form of intramuscular or intravenous injections, that is, they need to be pricked.
Another, more serious, method of treating pain is surgery, in other words, surgery. However, this is an extreme. It occurs in cases of herniated discs, stenosis of the spinal canal or lumbosacral sciatica, which do not respond to medication. Don’t run your health – and you won’t have to go under the knife!
All this is not a complete list of treatments. At this stage of human development, there are many alternative methods such as yoga, massage, acupuncture, physiotherapy and many others.
Each of the above means requires financial investments and time to return from a painful state to a favorable one. Therefore, take care of your back, do not allow complications! Health is your main resource that determines the future!