Back Pain Solution - Does Ice Massage Therapy For Back Pain Work
Is ice massage therapy the answer for relieving my back pain? The answer is yes! If you are experiencing a sore back an ice massage may be just what the doctor ordered. If you are like me and have played a lot of sports you know that coaches usually carry several packets of "instant ice" in their first aid kits. When there is an injury on the field the first thing a coach reaches for is an ice pack. The coach quickly activates the package placing it directly on the injured area. The ice does several things: 1. It reduces the swelling and inflammation. 2. It temporarily relieves the pain by stopping pain signals to your brain. 3. Prevents damage to injured tissue. Now if you have a sore back you don't need a fancy ice packet. Just crush some ice, put it in a ziplock bag, wrap it in a towel and place on your sore back. Limit the ice to about ten minutes. Even a bag of frozen peas will work if you are in a rush.
To further improve on using ice to relieve your sore back try an ice massage. Simply take your bag of frozen peas or ice pack, place on the injured area and move it in a circular motion around the sore muscle. Don't put the ice directly on your skin, always have some protective cloth, towel or clothing between the iceman skin. Ice massage is a quick, free and effective way to quickly bring relief to your aching back. Personally I give myself an ice massage at least once a day. Usually after my forty mile daily work commute. On weekends depending on how active I am I may use the ice twice a day. In my opinion ice massage therapy does work. The fact that coaches use this therapy as "first aid" for an injured player reinforces ice massage's effectiveness. However ice massage does not get at the root cause of your pain. For that you need a program or system that addresses the underlying cause of your pain/injury. Many times the real causes are weak muscles and/or muscle imbalance.
Lower Back Pain Relief at Home
Typically, the three most effective treatments for at home lower back pain include exercises, stretches and modalities. When properly implemented, a system of all three components can significantly decrease lower back pain as well as increase overall
flexibility and strength. In this article, we are going to introduce you to all three treatments. First, we would like to introduce modalities. Modalities include any method of therapeutic treatment. Items considered modalities include applying heat and cold, over the counter medication, massage devices, and others. They are therapeutic devices that assist with immediate relief and potentially increase the healing process. Two of the simplest and most common forms of modalities available at home are heat and cold. A combination of both heat and cold should be used to gain the most effective relief from symptoms. Appropriately applying heat and cold to the area(s) in question will significantly decrease the pain and increase flexibility as well as the healing process. When properly applied, heat will improve blood flow to the area in question. By increasing the blood flow, heat allows the affected muscle(s) to relax and become more flexible, in turn decreasing the tightness in the area in question. Cold on the other hand will constrict or tighten the muscle(s) reducing the blood flow to that area. By periodically removing the cold, new blood circulates to the muscle(s) in question creating a better environment for that area of trauma to heal. In addition, cold will help reduce swelling as well as reduce the pain in the affected area(s). The following are two simple methods for at home lower back pain relief with regards to heat and cold application. 1. For Heat - Place uncooked rice in a sock and put it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds or until the desired heat is acquired. 2. For cold, try using a bag of frozen peas or make a homemade ice pack by placing ice in a plastic bag. These two simple at home modality applications will certainly assist with reducing your pain, increasing flexibility and as well as assisting the healing process. On a side note, please use caution when entertaining various other modalities such as laser treatments, electric shock and other modalities. They can be detrimental to both your health as well as to your pocket. Keep in mind that to relieve symptoms, you really don't have to spend money. You have everything you need at home. The second effective treatment for at home relief is strengthening exercise. Strengthening exercise is vital to recovery. It is very important to know exactly what strengthening exercises to do as there are specific exercises for specific symptoms. Our goal is to coach you along the way so you have the appropriate mechanics to stop the pain at its core.
For example, as an analogy, anybody can throw a baseball, but if you don't have someone there to coach you, to have the right mechanics to know what step to foot forward with, to where to put your arm, to how to throw the ball, you really won't be that accurate with throwing a baseball. The same thing holds true for recovering from lower back pain. If you don't know what strengthening exercise to do and what muscle groups to target, you may never relieve the pain because you will just aimlessly do a bunch of exercises. In addition, performing the wrong strengthening exercises can actually exacerbate the symptoms causing you additional undue stress and pain. It is important for you to understand that alleviating lower back pain is much more than just doing exercises, putting on ice, and getting back to life. It is essential that you become aware of the appropriate muscle group(s) that causes your pain and how you can use the appropriate strengthening exercises to regain your health. Last but not least we would like to introduce our final treatment of this article - stretching. You may have heard that certain stretches work best for relieving lower back pain. While many of the demonstrated stretches can be effective in pain, many times your back pain will not subside because you don't know exactly what muscle group is the cause of your pain. That's why it is crucially important for you to first know what muscle group(s) are contributing to your back pain and what specific stretches you can do to alleviate your pain. Rather than giving you arbitrary strengthening exercises and stretches, we have created a quick and detailed questionnaire that was designed as a 1-on-1 consultation with our back pain specialists to diagnose the underlying causes of your back pain. It takes out the guesswork from lower back pain relief and only takes our average client 5 minutes to complete. In addition, once you complete the questionnaire, you will receive a Free Personalized Back Pain Relief Guide that provides you with the essential information to finally feel relief from your lower back pain.
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