Navigating Pain: A Recovery Roadmap
Back pain often starts off strong and can be restrictive, but it usually becomes milder within days or weeks. However, the length of back pain varies widely among people, from brief episodes lasting hours to ongoing or recurring bouts that can span years.
There are no quick fixes in the healing process; the body needs time to recover. While pain is discomforting, it plays an essential role in protecting us.
Rethinking Bed Rest: A Modern Reevaluation of Injury Recovery
Back pain, while often harmless, is a long-term symptom marked by recurring but self-limiting episodes. While doctors once prescribed bed rest for acute pain, thinking avoidance of pain would help healing, it is now understood that overprotection can hinder recovery or exacerbate symptoms. Today, the emphasis is on providing comfort, reassurance to stay active, and maintaining daily routines for effective management.
During recovery, it is common for symptoms to flare up with activity. Pain acts as a protective response, not always indicating harm.
It is okay to briefly reduce some activities due to pain. However, if tolerable, it is safe to keep doing it—even if there is some discomfort.
Staying active reduces stiffness, prevents muscle loss, and wards off complications, ensuring a smoother recovery and quicker relief. Recognising that hurt does not necessarily mean harm boosts both physical and mental fortitude, empowering confidence to challenge activities that might cause discomfort or worry.
Protect Vs Expose: Understanding When to Push & When to Pause
Patients often ask if they can undertake specific activities despite having back pain. While it is normal for pain to intensify during the activity, the key factor to watch for is if symptoms escalate the following day, as this determines their readiness for such tasks.
For instance, if your pain starts at a level four out of ten and rises to seven during an activity, but returns to four the next day, it is generally considered safe to keep doing that activity.
The idea is that the spine will become less sensitive over time, leading to easier engagement in activities.
However, if an activity raises your pain to a level of seven and it lingers, consider modifying or lessening its intensity to prevent unnecessary suffering. If the activity matters to you, regularly review your pain tolerance to see if improvements permit its gradual return.
The Comforting Effects of Spinal Manipulation on Musculoskeletal Pain
Spinal manipulation is a safe therapeutic technique used by chiropractors to lessen pain and alleviate stiffness.
It involves gentle and controlled force to specific joints, often resulting in a notable pop or crack. This method aims to soothe patients as their sensitised tissues heal and strengthen, helping them maintain an active lifestyle and lessen emotional distress. As their symptoms ease, a phased reactivation process follows.
Manual Therapy: Its Benefits & Limitations
Benefits: When applied appropriately, short-term manual therapy can offer relief, keep people active, help them relax, and foster a positive outlook towards an individual’s pain experience.
Limitations: On the flip side, if utilised inappropriately, people may be misled into believing manual therapy is mandatory for their recovery, fostering dependency. This can entrap them in a recurring reliance cycle that may last for years, preventing them from adopting sustainable self-management strategies.
At SpineLab, we champion supported self-management, training our clients to build resilience and take charge. As they become more adept at handling their symptoms, their need for pain relief services lessens.
Pharmacological Management Strategies: When to Take Pain-Relieving Medication and When to Stop
Guidelines are shifting away from drugs for low back pain due to limited benefits and potential side effects. The current approach emphasises radical acceptance, education, and maintaining function, rather than just alleviating symptoms
When deciding on pain medication, individuals should weigh factors like coping strategies, activity levels, work attendance, daily routine completion, and sleep quality. If pain severely impacts your life, temporary medication might help restore functionality. However, aim to stop medication when it is no longer essential. Always consult healthcare professionals before making such decisions.
Some believe they should stop medication before our assessment to avoid masking their symptoms.
In reality, this can hinder a thorough evaluation if the patient is too uncomfortable. In such cases, we will allocate more time once pain tolerance improves. Thus, do not hesitate to take your medication if you feel it is necessary.
For chronic pain lasting over twelve weeks, our focus is on fostering sustainable self-management strategies, rather than just using medication or therapies to abolish pain.
Desensitising the Spine: A Rehab Approach
Regardless of pain’s origins, understanding which postures, movements, and loads trigger discomfort and how to modify them is valuable.
Even if the exact cause of pain is unclear, this understanding helps individuals manage their symptoms.
Rehab interventions can be powerful tools in restoring function and improving tolerance.
However, it is important to use them appropriately. Just as wearing a cast on a broken bone will allow it to heal, wearing a cast on a perfectly normal arm will cause it to atrophy.
Once our symptom intensity lessens, we slowly return to regular routines and bring back activities we once avoided.
By slowly reintroducing strain to the spine, we increase its resilience via adaptation.
This approach is especially valuable for meaningful daily activities, allowing for a phased comeback.
