Lifestyle Factors That Influence Low Back Pain

 

 

What Influences Low Back Pain?

Today's video is about the lifestyle factors that influence low back pain.

Low back pain is an expensive condition to treat.

Some estimates show that $100 billion annually is spent in the United States on this condition.

So this is a very important thing for us to understand, "How do we properly treat this, how do we properly manage this, and what are the things that patients can do outside of the healthcare provider's office to help with their low back pain?"

First and foremost, our body mass index and weight play a significant role in low back pain.

If you are out of shape and overweight, this will influence your lower back.

These joints are weight-bearing joints, meaning you stand up, and you interact with gravity, so the heavier you are, the more work those joints have to do, the harder it is on them, so body mass index, our weight, does play a significant role.

Tips To Improve Low Back Pain

And people who tend to engage in weight loss, when they've been diagnosed with low back pain, they start to see a pretty significant improvement in their quality of life with respect to their low back pain just by getting their weight down.

Another one that I see consistently is that I encourage my patients to do core strengthening exercises, strengthening the core and the muscles around the lower back and the abdomen.

This plays a significant role in our ability to stabilize our lower back whenever we're doing anything like picking something up, gardening, or whatever it is, we need to have strong, engaged core muscles to protect our lower back.

This is something very common in my office that I am having my patients do in addition to their chiropractic care.

We need to strengthen your lower back to protect it.

Also, after making these adjustments to help stabilize your spine, you tend to hold your adjustment longer and better when you have strong core muscles.

Active vs. Sedentary

Active versus sedentary, this is something that we need to look at.

For someone with a desk job, sitting six to eight hours a day takes a big toll on your lower back, so getting up and moving around.

In many cases with patients who have had chronic low back pain, where we do not see a lot of improvement, I've recommended sit-stand desks for them.

Because, yeah, when you're sitting, the load on your lower back goes up about 50%, so it's working 50% harder, and when your body isn't moving, the joints in your lower back cannot get nutrition in and waste out.

Think of the joints almost like a pump.

When you move, the pump works, we get nutrition in, and we're able to get waste out, but when we sit and don't move, the lower back works 50% harder, and those joints can't move to get nutrients in and waste out so not a recipe for success for them.

So when we have a situation, active versus sedentary, we try to address if it's work-related, yes, we need to do things, because if you have a sit-stand desk, you can kind of move around when you're doing that, too, and you can have the legs get involved when you're at work.

Then, the other thing is incorporating activity in your life, regular exercise, walking, whatever it is, we know is really good for the joints and can help with respect to low back pain.

These are just a few more things, but these are significant categories that we like to address when discussing low back pain with our patients.

I'm Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place.

 

Call our office today to schedule an appointment to kickstart your healthy life: 530-221-8443

 

 

*The transcription is auto-generated by a program and may not be accurate. In order to ensure you get all the information from the video properly, you must watch the video.