Like the neck pain, back pain is also the most common condition in daily life, especially the working age and elderly. Normally, most patients are able to recover on their own in 4-8 weeks. Like the neck pain, by arranging daily life posture and getting appropriated treatment, the back pain might not annoy you.
How to Prevent Back Pain
To prevent back pain, you should avoid:
- Impaired posture causing back pain, such as, sitting with in a bent back or bent down position for long periods, lifting heavy objects from the floor without bending your knee, etc.
- Bone and muscle diseases, such as herniated discs, degenerative spine, spinal tumor, etc.
- Negative mental condition, such as stress which cause the back muscle to contract all the time
Does it sound impossible? Those are the daily life activities which are difficult to avoid. However, do not worry. Back pain has its own common symptoms that you should know to realize yourself getting back pain. Here they are:
Back Pain Symptoms
- You might feel pain in the lower back, hips, or legs.
- The pain may on and off, or persistent.
- You might have numbness, leg weakness, or unusual stool and urination problems.
When to See a Doctor
As said above, they are the common symptoms of back pain. On the other hand, you might take it seriously and go to see the doctor if you have these back pain symptoms:
- Sudden or unusual intense pain
- Chronic low back pain for more than 3 months
- Annoying pain in daily activities (standing up, sitting, standing, walking)
- Radiating pain down to the leg with on-and-off symptoms for 2 weeks
- Severe pain at night
- Unable to bend the ankle
- leg pain, leg numbness, and leg weakness
- Rapid weight loss
- Uncontrollable excretion or incontinent urination
Self-Treatment for Back Pain
If you now are not facing these serious symptoms of back pain, luckily you can do the back pain self-treatment. The back pain which has no severe causes can be relief after a while by following these steps:
1) Taking a painkiller or NSAIDs, i.e., ibuprofen
2) Cold compression, which decreases inflammation and improves swelling and reducing bleeding
3) Hot compression, which improves muscle soreness
4) Exercise by laying down with back flat on the bed and stretch back muscles while arms resting beside the body, then contract the belly for about 10 seconds. Repeat it for 2-3 times
5) Massage by rubbing or kneading back or legs to improve blood circulation, glands and organs’ function
By doing these things, back pain can be cured by yourself. It is not too difficult to do them. Moreover, back pain also can be easily prevented by arranging the daily life posture. Although, back pain is a common condition, you do not need to get it.