Posts Tagged ‘lower back pain causes’

Dealing With Lower Back Pain

One-sided lower back pain is a fairly common problem that affects most people at some time in their life. Each year millions of people have experienced the pain and discomfort of one-sided, or unilateral, lower back pain. Many of those people are disabled to the point of being unable to hold their jobs and continue working.In fact, back pain ranks number one among all reasons cited for workman’s compensation claims.

The pain in a one sided lower back pain will present as either sharp or dull. It can also present as a general acheiness and be constant or intermittent. There are a variety of conditions that will account for this pain such as a herniated disc, muscle injury,muscle imbalance, or resulting muscle spasms.

Bad Posture Is A Major Cause

Sometimes lower back pain that happens on one side is a result of postural distortion. When an individual has postural distortion it means that their posture, or the way in which they normally hold their body, is distorted or off the center line of gravity, as demonstrated in the opening video. This problem can be a result of a twist of the pelvis when one hip joint is higher than the other as when there is a leg length discrepancy. Or the hip can be pulled higher making one leg higher than the other artificially.

Leg Length Discrepancy

In one instance this is called a functional leg length discrepancy because one leg isn’t really shorter than the other it is the hip joint that has twisted and made the leg function shorter. In the other instance it is called structural leg length discrepancy because one leg really is shorter than the other when measured from heel to hip.

The body will attempt to compensate for the tilt with muscle contractions and this often involves the muscles of the lower back. As long as the twist of the pelvis and the body tilt is the same the muscles have to work very hard to keep the center line of gravity. This will eventually wear down the muscles and cause pain and spasms.

Correcting the problems that cause the one sided lower back pain is the only way to relieve the person of the pain permanently. Otherwise the muscles spasms will diminish with time and treatment and then flare again not long afterward. In the cause of a structural discrepancy the leg length can be corrected with additions to the shoe. In the case of a functional discrepancy the original problem at the hip must be corrected.

Start With A Specialist

In either case it’s best to start with a practitioner who is adept at measurements and back manipulation, such as a qualified chiropractor. After measuring the legs and determining the origination of the pain they will recommend either pelvic manipulations to correct the torsion or a visit to a podiatrist for a shoe insert to correct the leg length discrepancy. But even in the case of a structural deformity, after years of walking on one leg shorter than the other there is bound to be some pelvic deformity as well as the body attempts to correct the imbalance.

Self Care Measures

Even before seeing a chiropractor there are several self-care things that can be done at home to help alleviate the pain and discomfort. First make that appointment with an osteopathic or chiropractic physician. Second, you can use over the counter anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen, to help decrease the body’s response to inflammation which has caused the muscle spasms in the back.

Don’t resort to going to bed but instead stay active and as mobile as you can. Continue to walk, sit and stand but use frequent rests where you are lying flat to take the strain off of the lower back. Try not to stay flat for longer than an hour, except when sleeping at night, because as you stay quiet the muscles will begin to contract making it more difficult to get up after lying down.

Ice Down The Pain

Try using ice in the first 48 hours after the initiation of the pain and then heat to help the muscles relax and move more easily. Heat will also increase the blood flow to the area and assist in healing the injured tissue. Don’t sleep with a heating pad because of the danger of greater tissue damage from the heat. Use a low setting on the heating pad to decrease the risk of damage to tissues.

Unilateral low back pain is a common ailment. It is often secondary to postural distortion but is can be a result of poor posture that is initiated by the individual. For instance, chronically sitting on your leg in a chair will also cause a twisting or torsion of the hips and start you down the road to low back pain.

Published by Relief For Back Pain

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