If you have stumbled upon this post, you must be suffering from some kind of back pain, and eagerly looking for solutions to improve it. But before treating back pain, you must first understand why it happens in the first place.
You’ll be surprised to know that back pain is one of the most common problems faced by people today. If you have it, you aren’t alone. Almost 80% of adults experience it at least once during their lifetime at some point or another.
You may end up with pain in the back due to a number of reasons. It may be due to some serious issues involving the muscles, ligaments or bones of the back.
However, the more common (and thankfully, less serious) causes are mechanical, which may be due to improper posture, trauma (physical injury), or degenerative changes in your body as you age.
Causes of Back Pain
Some common as well as rare back pain causes are mentioned below.
MECHANICAL, LESS SERIOUS AND MORE COMMON CAUSES:
- Strains or sprains: This is the most common reason for back pain. The main underlying cause is overstretching, tearing of ligaments, tendons or muscles, which may occur due to improper lifting, lifting heavy objects, or overstretching.
- Disc Degeneration: This occurs when the intervertebral disc (disc between two vertebral bones) becomes less elastic with age due to loss of water content.
- Disc herniation or rupture: Herniation (bulging due to compression) or rupture of the intervertebral disc.
- Spinal stenosis: This is narrowing of the spinal canal, which compresses the nerves and spinal cord, leading to back pain and numbness or weakness.
- Trauma: Injuries due to sports, accidents or falls may damage the spine. The back pain in this case may also result due to sprains, strains, herniation or disc rupture.
- Sciatica: Compression of the sciatic nerve, resulting in shock-like burning pain through the buttocks, down one leg up till the foot.
- Skeletal abnormalities: Pain due to abnormal structure of the spine.
SOME RARE BUT SERIOUS CAUSES:
- Infections (involving the vertebra e.g. osteomyelitis; discs or joints of the back)
- Tumours
- Inflammation of joints (e.g. arthritis, spondylitis)
- Osteoporosis (a disease resulting is decreased bone density, resulting is easy fractures)
- Others: Cauda equine syndrome (compression of spinal nerves due to ruptured disc), aortic aneurysm (abnormally enlarged blood vessels in the abdomen), endometriosis (build-up of uterine tissue in places other than uterus), fibromyalgia (a syndrome involving widespread muscle fatigue and pain).
Bad Posture and Back Pain Causes and Solutions
The perception of posture is often correlated only with keeping one’s back straight while the torso is in an upright posture. However, posture also involves the positioning of the body while laying down, or while being engaged in activities.
For example, sleeping in an awkward position can be considered bad posture while sleeping. Bad form while lifting weights, such as bending at the hip and pelvis rather than at the knees, is also considered bad posture.
That being said, all types of posture should be addressed to improve pain caused by postural problems. This includes addressing both static posture (which includes standing posture and body positioning while laying down) as well as dynamic posture (such as when you are moving).
But how can you address all these issues? And the answer to that is simple. Exercising is the best way to correct posture.
Most of the time, we end up with back pain due to our day-to-day activities. These may include sitting at home or work for prolonged periods, improper sleeping patterns or improper posture while lifting heavy objects. Surprisingly, the only one most important solution to this problem is improving your posture, and that’s where we come in.
In some cases, weak back and core muscles are to blame for poor posture. As such, strengthening exercises that focus on core muscles, abdominal muscles and back muscle building (such as Pilates) will help you achieve better posture.
Another option is to engage in spinal decompression exercises which stretch out your spine and remove pressure from it, straightening it and restoring the spaces between your vertebrae in the process. These can be done with the help of a device called the Backrack.
Backrack Spinal Decompression Device
How Backrack Improves Posture
The shape of the device mimics the exact spinal curvature alignment, resulting in optimal back support. The wooden structure cushions each vertebra on either side, pushing them up and decompressing the joints. This results in decreased stiffness, increased joint mobility and reduction in back pain for good.
The Backrack can also be used to maintain good posture and prevent it from causing you more issues in the future.
Author: Spinal Backrack
