SIMPLE PAIN RELIEF with Kathryn Merrow, the Pain Relief Coach
It's NOT just "old age"! Discover the truth about why you hurt and the "secrets" to becoming pain free!
We humans get back pain when our muscles get out of balance. How does this happen?
Well, we are supposed to move, run, jump, climb, roll and continue doing all of the cool, fun things we did as young children.
But most of us do not. 🙁
So, we get back pain.
Why? Because we are no longer using our muscles in a balanced way. We use the same 60 or 70 or so each day and the rest of the 600 muscles are ignored. When those muscles get unhappy, you Continue reading “What Causes Back Pain”
When your back hurts you might think you will have back pain forever. Not so!
You have a smart body. Your back pain is a message. Your body is telling you that it is not happy about something that is happening.
There are a lot of causes for back pain but most involve your muscles.
Muscles move joints, bones, disks in your spine and press on nerves.
Muscles rule!
My client Sharon said, “My mom’s been having a lot of back pain lately. She tried one massage and hurt more afterward so she’s afraid to try again. She’s going to have hospital tests next week.”
I called her mom and asked her about her back pain. (Pain is a Continue reading “You Don’t Have To Have Back Pain Forever!”
If you have neck pain or back pain there’s a really good chance that you have lost the natural curves in your spine.
When you were born you were curled into a rounded-back position.
In a little while you began to stretch your arms and legs and rolled over and arched your back in the opposite direction of that birth position. You pushed up with your arms and lifted your head. Why?
You were getting the muscles around your spine and torso ready to walk! You were creating the natural curves in your back that you needed.
So now you have back or neck pain because you’re losing those natural curves but bodies heal all the time.
It’s important Continue reading “How To Get The Natural Curves Back In Your Spine To Improve Posture And Reduce Neck and Back Pain”
Back pain responds to stretching but not just any old stretching. The muscles that need to be lengthened are not necessarily the same ones that are complaining!
You may not remember but when you were a baby you were stretching all the time.
If you watch a cat or dog, they stretch often.
And, you? Do you still stretch up and out and back like you did when you were a baby? If not, this is a good time to start.
So what will stretching do for you? It will move your blood and lymph fluids. It will help your body “wake up.” It can get rid of the causes of your back pain and help get your muscles back “in balance.”
If you’d like even more information on ways to get rid of your back pain, go to http://BackPainNaturalRelief.com
Upper back pain, mid-back pain or lower back pain all have the same most common cause: Your muscles.
Muscles are the most frequent cause of back pain. And that’s good news! Why? Because muscles can be “released” or treated and get back to their normal healthy state.
Here’s more about muscles:
Your muscles don’t usually act all by themselves; they pull all the other parts of your body into the act. Why? Because all of your parts are attached. That means ALL of your body should be assessed to figure out WHY you are having pain in your back.
If you’ve had your Continue reading “Got Back Pain? Muscles Cause Pain In Your Back – Here’s How”
Back pain is often caused by posture. When your posture collapses–you “fall forward” with your head leading the rest of the group–the muscles in your chest get short and tight. That makes it hard to breathe, hard to hold your head up, hard to have good posture.
At the same time, the muscles in your back get overstretched and strained and so they complain. (They hate being stretched too far!) They give you pain to call your attention to the fact that something is wrong.
Collapsed posture also causes lower back pain, headaches and migraines, constipation and lots and lots of other problems.
It’s a primary cause of “old age.”
You had wonderful posture when you were very young and with a bit of help from you, you can have it again.
In a very small nutshell, strengthen the muscles of your backside from knees to head. Lengthen (stretch) the muscles of your calves and the whole front side of your body from knees to head.
If you happen to see a baby, a cat or a dog stretching, imitate them. 🙂 They are stretching the correct muscles to be functional and pain-free!
If you have pain in your back it might be from muscles on the back side of your body.
Or…it may be from the muscles on your abdomen! Your belly is the “front of your back.”
Today a client told me that she had a great weekend stretching and straining and balancing on a ladder to trim, prune and clean up her yard. She said it looked beautiful! And she felt fine until she sat down.
When she tried to get up, her back from hip bones to shoulder blades went into spasm and tightened up!
She tried to press into her muscles to relax them the best she could but basically she had spent the last two days in bed. She was very uncomfortable.
I warmed, massaged and pressed into the tight muscles along her spine for a while. They were very tender but they didn’t seem to be releasing or getting better even though she said a few times, “I think you’re on the cause!”
So I suggested we work on the muscles on the front side of her body. The right side of her abdomen was fine; no pain and no referrals.
The left side of her abdomen was “on fire” when I stretched the muscles on the soft abdomen. Her ribs were “on fire” when I pressed into the muscles that ran up from her belly.
For whatever reason, the muscles on the left side of her abdomen had spasmed or “tightened up” and they were causing her back pain. Even though Continue reading “Back Pain? Your Stomach Muscles Can Cause Pain In Your Back and Massage Can Help!”
Playing musical instruments can be a pain in the neck.
I was at a high school symphony band concert and was struck by the extremely poor posture and “forward head posture” of many of the musicians.
Even though a lot of young people have “forward heads,” it was much more so with the musicians than with the general student population.
Why would this be?
Most of us hold our arms and heads in front of us most of the day, but musicians–musical athletes–hold their instruments for extended periods without the opportunity to stretch or relax the muscles that support their instruments.
What could help? Stretching, strengthening and massage.
The muscles in the front of the body support the instrument. The are the ones that are Continue reading “Why do Musicians and Band Members Get Back & Neck Pain?”
You are not alone. Millions of people suffer from chronic back pain.
Sometimes your back pain is caused by something that you do.
Other times, it’s caused by something you DON’T do. Okay, I’ll be totally honest:
There are a LOT of reasons for chronic back pain. It could be caused by:
Let’s just stick to muscle strain here. We can talk about the other causes at a different time.
Can muscle strain can be caused by doing things over and over?
Yes, and especially when the same movement is done over and over again incorrectly.
Here’s an example:
I was at the airport and I was watching the men who Continue reading “Chronic Back Pain and Muscle Strain – Is There a Simple Pain Relief Answer?”
There can be many causes for back pain, but most of them involve muscles and soft tissues (nerves, fascia, and everything except bones.)
When you were little, you used all of your muscles. At some point, for some reason (sitting, sports, injury) you started getting out of muscular balance. When this happened, you were setting the stage for pain in your back.
When all of your muscles were “balanced” (neither too tight nor too weak) you didn’t have back pain. But, now you do.
So, what should you do?
Part of the answer depends on exactly what is causing the pain in your back.
Do you have trigger points? Trigger points are hyper-irritable places in muscles which refer, or “fire,” pain elsewhere (sometimes far away.)
Does your back hurt simply because of tight muscles or muscle strain?
Is it due to the positions or furniture you spend a lot of time in? Or your mattress?
Could it be poor posture or habits? A rotation in your torso? A “slipped disk”?
The first part of the answer is to stretch the muscles which have become shortened. These muscles are most likely at the root of your back pain, and Continue reading “Back Hurts? What Should You Do for Back Pain Relief?”
I recommend therapeutic massage for almost every type of physical pain.
Why? Because it works!
Massage is old medicine. It’s used all over the world for a wide variety of ailments.
Why? Because it works! (Oh, I already said that, didn’t I?) 🙂
But sometimes when you go to a massage therapist your pain doesn’t go away. Maybe it feels better for a short time, or even just while the therapist is working on your painful area. But, it comes right back. Or, it is back within just a few hours. Or, doesn’t feel better at all.
When that has happened to one of my clients, I told them what that means.
That means I was wrong about the cause of their symptom (their pain.) It means I didn’t work on the muscles or soft tissue that was the true cause of their pain. That means we have to try again.
The unfortunate thing is, many massage therapists only know how to do a relaxation-type massage. Relaxation or stress-reduction massages can be really great, but…
When you have pain, a relaxation massage probably won’t give you much benefit.
If you have pain symptoms, and you want relief, you will have to find a massage professional who “knows his or her stuff.” Someone who can assess WHY you are having pain. Someone who can figure out a “treatment” plan to help you become pain-free.
If your massage therapist rubs and presses on the painful area (and some will do this for the whole hour) and your pain doesn’t go away, then that therapist doesn’t “know their stuff.”
And, if that therapist can’t figure out why your muscle won’t release (relax) then she doesn’t “know her stuff.”
And, if she says it’s the worst “knot” she has ever seen, she should not be in the massage field at all, in my opinion. Her job is to help you feel better, not worse.
When your painful muscle spasm won’t release, it Continue reading “You Went to a Massage Therapist for Your Back Pain–Why Didn’t It Help?”
We have really, really strong backs. Really, we do!
But, sometimes when something happens, like a spasm or a “catch”, we start to think that our back is frail, or fragile. We think we have to “baby” our back.
When we start to baby our back, or move tentatively, we are setting ourselves up for injury. We start to move stiffly, instead of smoothly. We are more likely to get hurt when we move stiffly instead of gracefully.
The bones of the spine are called vertebrae. They are built in a way that allows them to bend, twist and move in a variety of ways. The vertebrae in the neck and upper part of the back are smaller, but the lower back bones are larger and sturdier.
Pads of tough tissue, called disks, cushion the bones and separate them from each other. The disks give us more ability to move.
Long, strong muscles run the length of our spines. They secure each bone to the rest of the spine bones so that the spine acts as one long unit. Muscles allow us to move. Muscles move bones.
Sometimes we panic when our back hurts. Sometimes we become afraid it will always hurt. We may make an appointment with a doctor or surgeon, hoping they will “fix” our back.
Now, I will admit, occasionally someone does have a back problem which requires surgery. For instance, a chip may have broken off a bone, maybe through an accident. If the bone chip presses on a nerve, it may require surgery to remove it from the nerve. That should correct the pain.
And, thank goodness that doctors and surgeons are available for the times when we truly need them.
But, can your back pain heal naturally? You bet!
Think about it. If you cut your finger, does it heal by itself? If you scrape your knee, does it heal? If you break a bone, will it heal? (If it’s a bad break, it will require repair, but the bone will heal, with or without repair. The repair will help the bone heal in the correct position.)
Our skin heals itself. Our bones heal themselves. We get germs, and get sick, and we get better again.
So, please don’t panic.
Ice helps muscle spasms. The rule of thumb is ice for the first 48 hours, and then you can switch to heat, or alternate heat with ice. Ice for 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off. Do this several times in rotation.
Take an anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen. If there is inflammation, or swelling, in the muscles, an anti-inflammatory is supposed to help reduce the swelling. Reducing the swelling may take pressure off a nerve, if you are having nervy pain.
Keep gentle movement going. Move with as much fluidity as you can. Try to be graceful, not lurching. Gentle movement keeps the muscles warm and keep fluids moving through our tissues.
If you have extreme pain, or lose control of your bowels or bladder, see your doctor immediately.
But, even with extreme pain, if you are patient, your body can usually heal by itself.
I had a client who had such pain that he could only kneel on the floor with his upper body supported on the bed for two days! He crawled to the bathroom and crawled back to his bed. Kneeling helped him feel a little better because with his belly supported on the bed, it took some pressure off whatever nerve was getting aggravated.
It took several weeks for him to feel well again, but it did happen. He resumed walking, but it was from picnic table to picnic table at the park. Eventually, he could walk normally again.
Lots of manual muscle therapy, or therapeutic massage, helped his tight muscles relax and took pressure off his nerve.
When he was first injured, his doctor said, “Well, you could have surgery, if you’d like.”
The problem is, sometimes surgery helps and sometimes it doesn’t. Back surgeries are done less now than they used to be, because often they didn’t help.
Often muscles are the cause of our pain. Really often.
And muscles are really good at going into spasm, but they are not so good at releasing their spasm. If we keep moving gently, use ice and an anti-inflammatory on a consistent basis, and get manual muscle/massage therapy if possible, our backs can get better.
Posture plays a big part in back injuries. If you suspect that your back is not as strong as it should be, that would be a good thing for you to work on.
You can find more information about getting a strong back at Simple Strengthening
Strong backs rule!