Back pain symptoms
Acute back pain is a sharp, sudden pain in the form of a stabbing, cutting sensation in the back when you try to straighten up after, for example, heavy lifting. It stings and it feels like your back is going to break. The back has ‘locked up’ as the muscles cramp. It’s difficult to keep your body straight, you often walk leaning forward and you like to lean sideways to relieve the strain.
The pain usually subsides within a few days to a few weeks, depending on the structures that have been overloaded. Mild back pain can often persist for several months after a back injury.
What is back pain?
Back pain is acute back pain that most often occurs in the lumbar region, and is therefore also called acute low back pain or acute lumbago. It occurs suddenly and often in connection with heavy lifting and turning the back a little carelessly. The back muscles cramp and the back “locks up”, making it difficult to straighten your back. You feel a sharp pain in your back and you get stuck in a forward leaning position, often and also slightly bent to the side.
The most severe acute symptoms usually heal on their own within a few weeks, but minor back pain often persists for several months after a back injury. How long it takes to get rid of pain depends on which structures in the back are affected and damaged. Is it any disk, ligament, joint capsule, muscle or the fascia around all the structures of the back? The fascia is always involved, it is filled with free nerve endings that can signal pain when the back is misloaded.
So what caused the back pain? Usually, no explanation is found and nothing is visible in any X-ray examination. It is likely that the back has been overworked in incorrect positions for a long time. You do things that you are not really trained for, you lift too heavily and unergonomically, you twist the poorly stabilized lumbar spine while loading with too heavy a weight. If you repeat it too often, the fascia will try to strengthen and tighten around the back. It becomes a denser structure that becomes less and less mobile and eventually it will stop. The denser structure presses on pain receptors, of which there are plenty in the fascia.
Factors that increase the risk of back pain can be age, as the fascia loses elasticity with age. Depression, worry, anxiety cause stress and affect the fascia greatly, as it contracts and tightens. Depression, anxiety, etc. can also be caused by nutritional deficiencies, such as vitamin C and D, magnesium, etc. Adequate nutritional status is of paramount importance for the fascia and all body functions.
Good back exercises
To release pain and tension in your back, it is important to breathe! Practice deep breathing through the nose, it calms the body down.
You can lie on the floor with your legs angled on a chair or some type of box. Your hips and knees should be angled at 90°. Extend your arms about 45° from your body, resting them on the floor with your palms facing up. At first you will probably feel some tension in your lower back.
As the muscles and fascia relax and you breathe deeply, your body will feel heavier and heavier and your lower back will sink towards the floor. Now your hip flexors, which are thick, powerful muscles, have begun to release their tension and the strain on your back is reduced.
Continue to lie still and breathe deeply for 5 – 10 minutes.
Exercises for herniated discs
If you have a herniated disc , there are exercises you can do to help facilitate and promote the healing process. For example, stabilizing core exercises and balance exercises are effective, as they strengthen the abdominal muscles and the small stabilizing muscles of the back, the multifidus, which relieves the spine and discs. If you are very sedentary, your hip flexors can become shorter, which in turn causes more problems and puts strain on the lumbar, thoracic and even cervical spine. Therefore, it is beneficial to do stretching exercises for the hip flexors and constantly reflect on your posture. Stretching exercises can be, for example, lunges, sun salutations or yin yoga, where slow stretching exercises are practiced.
Back pain treatment
Breathe deeply and do relaxation exercises. Try to move around with slow walks as much as you can, rest and stillness usually make it worse. Sometimes, however, rest may be needed for the first few acute days.
See “Exercises for back pain”
Seek help at a Fascia Clinic for treatment. The pain usually goes away relatively quickly, but the key is to seek help quickly. The longer the problem lasts, the longer it takes to fix. In addition, you get help to balance your body so that you do not misload your back in the future.
Can back pain be prevented?
Back pain can be prevented by building muscle strength and flexibility. It is good to move and to move varied and train the muscles in both back and stomach. Circulation and flow increase when we move. Training balance and core strength is also important to protect and relieve all the tissue structures of the back.
Working posture is important, vary movements and take breaks, perhaps a short walk at lunch. Don’t sit all day, for example a height-adjustable desk is good. If you walk and stand a lot on hard floors, good, shock-absorbing shoes are a must.
Avoid heavy lifting and be sure to always use and bend your legs and not arch your back. Keep the weight close to the body so that it provides support and certainly do not twist your back but instead turn your whole body.
A good, not too soft bed can also prevent back pain.
Varied exercise (yoga is good) and activity in the right amount, a varied healthy diet and enough sleep and rest are good ways to avoid back pain.
Finally, it is very beneficial, both physically and mentally, to make sure to give your body regular treatment to maintain it and prevent problems from occurring.