It is estimated that up to 80% of the population will experience back pain at some time in their lives. If you are part of that 80%, you know how far you are willing to go just to get a little bit of relief.
When you live with severe back pain – the kind that can go from non-existent to debilitating in a fraction of a second – you know that it can eat away at every aspect of your life.
You may innocently reach for something and your back goes into spasm, or you may have chronic back pain that affects work, sleep, relationships, and simple activities of everyday life.
At best your back pain is exhausting. At its worst, it is immobilizing and absolutely crippling.
You may resort to injections, pain medication, or even surgery as a last resort. You will try just about anything to ease the pain.
But these options are temporary. They only mask the pain and are not a cure.
To get real and lasting results for your back pain, you must get to the root of the problem: What is actually causing your back pain in the first place?
Some Stats on Back Pain
It has been reported that worldwide, back pain is the single leading cause of disability and is one of the most common reasons that people miss work. It prevents many people from engaging in not only work, but also other very basic everyday activities.
Back pain is also the third most common reason for visits to the doctor’s office, and one-half of all working Americans say that they suffer from back pain symptoms every year.
The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research estimates that low-back pain costs Americans at least $50 billion in health care costs each year.
If you include lost wages and decreased productivity, that figure easily jumps to more than $100 billion.
Why is this? Can something be done to help prevent all of this agony?
Back Pain Causes Often Go Unexplained
Unfortunately, a significant number of back pain cases every year are never properly diagnosed. The reason for this is that we are often looking in the wrong place.
If we think the underlying source of back pain is the result of a disc injury or arthritis, for example, then we will look for the underlying damage using techniques like X-rays, MRI’s or CAT scans.
If damage is found using these methods, the resulting treatments will, of course, attempt to address it.
Drugs are often recommended, but they do not correct the problem. They simply cover up the symptoms and do not address the actual source of the pain.
Sadly, many people resort to surgery to address the problem. Recently, it has been found that up to 74% of all back surgeries fail and those who have surgery still suffer pain afterward. Many of them will even have to have repeat surgeries.
Why does this happen? The primary reason is that doctors are trained to look at the condition of the body.
They search for disc injury, joint inflammation, or arthritis, but those are not always the root cause for the condition.
And this is what doctors often get this wrong. It isn’t age, activity, or even genetics that are causing the condition. It can be the body’s position.
Pain Can Result in More Health Issues
Back pain is a symptom of muscle imbalances over time. For example, your back pain could result from an imbalance in your pelvis, or due to rounding of the upper back.
Back pain can lead to one having feelings of stiffness, soreness, and discomfort. From there it is not uncommon for a downward spiral to occur.
This can result in problems with sleep, stress, metabolism, and more.
Whatever is creating the imbalance can be corrected by restoring symmetry to the body. This, in turn, restores proper alignment thus alleviating your back pain!
Think of a house. If a house has a shaky foundation and uneven framing, ultimately it will result in severe structural problems.
The same goes for your body! The more postural deviations you have the greater propensity for injury and increased pain.
Take care of your house and don’t let it fall into a state of disrepair!
Back Pain Happens Over Time
Sometimes our back pain is caused directly by an accident, like getting hit by a car. More often than not though, the pain is the result of the body’s misalignment over time.
When the body is misaligned, it is forced to adapt in order to function. This means that parts of our body are doing jobs that they were never meant to do.
Your pain is not caused by the activities as many people may have told you. It is the position of the body that you take to those activities!
Think about it: When we were kids, 5, 6 or 7 years old, we could do anything with no pain and no limitations.
So why don’t we live pain-free as adults?
Our backs are designed to be flexible and able to carry weight. They are built to be strong and supportive.
However, the time we spend sitting every day as we work, study, or watch television greatly reduces the stimulus and activity we are bringing to our bodies.
The average person spends 8 hours and 41 minutes on electronic devices every day, which causes the head and neck to crane forward. That is a very long time for the body to remain in the same position.
This sort of inactivity causes our back to lose full range of motion. Muscles that do not move eventually become muscles that cannot move.
What happens as a result? Back pain!
Address Your Posture
So how do we fix this? The position or posture of the body causes the condition of the body. It is that simple.
By providing the body with the exercise or stimulus it needs, the alignment can slowly be restored. This will allow your body to be balanced again in a neutral and functional position.
The beauty in restoring function to the body by using postural alignment therapy is that it is lasting and preventative. It helps to provide you with the tools you need to not only get out of pain but also to prevent future issues!
When we are free of physical pain and limitations something else very powerful happens: we start living the rest of our life without limitation or worry.
So what can you do? Where do you go from here?
I can help figure out what you need to do to correct your postural imbalances!
Contact me today for a free consultation and Pain Free Philly will happily help you learn what your postural imbalances are as well as how to address them.
The human body is amazing and has a miraculous natural ability to heal itself given the proper tools.
Let me show you how and get back to a life that moves you!