Lower back pain

After working too hard, bending digging shoveling I have lower back pain. It lingers since a week but since yesterday I have problems bending down. And you can't imagine how often one bends down a day! I tried yoga exercises, to jog a hot bath but so far it does relieve somewhat but I don't want to move like an old grandmother! It might be sciatic but I don't know. I overworked hundreds of times and with some exercises it always went away but this time it is different. Anyone had the same?

You bet I've been there. My condolences, I feel your pain. My advice- find a good chiropractor. Bad ones certainly deserve their much maligned reputation, but when your vertebrae slip out of allignment, it puts horrible pressure on your spinal nerves and causes crushing pain. I have been there many times. This is what it sounds like you are describing.

For the future, the preventative key is maintaining good allignment when performing the physical labor. Much easier said than done, especially with repetative physical jobs like filling pickup load after pickup load of manure, or weeding a huge garlic patch. I still struggle to care for my body in the way it really needs, while working my farm to the fullest. I think that we need to train our bodies like athletes, and then execute our physical tasks with the focus of a champion.

good luck!

Thanks a lot! No it is not that bad. The pain is there only when I have to bend and I am not used to not being able to bend.
As said I never had back pain before and if some yoga exercises did the trick, and ballet this really helps, but as you are male you might not very easily be convinced of doing ballet. I don't know about a chiropractic here but if it goes on like that I might go to the acupuncturist.

Forget the chiropractor.

Do some gentle stretching. Lie on your back and gently draw your knees up to your chest. DO NOT FORCE IT. Hold steady pressure to the point where you can tolerate it for at least 30 seconds. Longer is better. Once the muscles start to give you will feel the range expand. Try to get it where you can put your knees against your chest. Then do that and while in this position do a modified sit up to extend the stretch into your upper back as well.

I find that one other thing that affects my lower back is tight hip muscles. While lying on your back draw one of your knees up and over your other leg. Let it rest in a comfortable spot like above and allow the muscles to stretch. Your hips may rotate some and that is OK. As they do you may be able to get the knee to touch the floor on the opposite side. Eventually you will be able to lie on the edge of your bed and allow the knee to drop below the surface of the bed! Do both sides for sure.

Repeat all the above as many times as needed to gain relief.

Antispasmotic herbs such as valerian, skullcap and lobelia may help as well or even better in combination.

Thanks it's much better now. Take it like the Buddhists, suffering is part of life, but don't suffer while suffering. And really while I can't do hard work I got these windows painted......

Hi guys read up on devils claw root I was hunting years ago in western Kansas and brought back some seed pods and planted them in the garden I use the roots in a tea for lower back ache it simply works !

As with so many things, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The biggest key is to get your legs to do more of the work instead of your back. Squat down to pick up heavy things. Go along your beds like this, or on hands and knees, to pick, weed, etc. when possible. Use long-handled tools from a standing position in preference to bending over if possible. A sharp hoe wielded with precision can take care of 90% of the weeds in an area and then just touch up by hand. I made a shovel with a handle about 18 inches longer than usual and it has been wonderful for things like digging holes where the extra reach and leverage further spares the back.

The best time to work on back pain is when it doesn't hurt at all. For intermittent suffers, it's best to give everything a rest once a minor strain occurs. In a few days, when you're back to normal, work on the preventive measures. If I'm doing something repetitive, like removing drywall, I try to mix up the body movements, so that I get a good workout without overworking one part.

Even if you feel better now, I would still recommend a good chiropractor to help prevent a repeat. As a chiropractor (and a patient), my preference is an upper cervical technique called NUCCA (National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association). It is very gentle and specific while highly effective. There is a "find a doc" option at the association website ( http://www.nucca.org/ ).

Along with what everyone else has said I would recommend lying on the floor/carpet with either a yoga mat or some blankets.

I have recently switched over to lying on the floor I have a 1 inch foam pad and than 2 blankets along with cardboard under my body while I sleep. Basically what is does to your body is open it up. I believe that the hips open up tremeduously. It's almost as if I am stretching all night. Even when I wake up in the morning I do not have any body aches only thing now is my eyes are still sleepy. Now I am not the only one who can attest to this my girlfriend and about 10 other people I know sleep this way.
I recently spent 4 months in Nepal and this was how the beds were designed. It was a cotton mattress that was maybe 1 inch thick, that's it! Anyways the reason I told you that is when I came back to Canada my bed which I used to sleep on left me feeling sore and I had mild back pain from sinking into the bed. I had a medium firmness bed. I switched back to sleeping on a flatter surface which didn't sink in or cause my body to slouch into the bed. My body has never been better and I am actually selling my bed as we speak. The nice thing about it is you can sleep on just about anything and it cost next to nothing.

My only other recommendation would be to sit on one of the exercise balls while watching tv/on permies something without a soft back support.

Hope some of this helps!!!

Thank you for all the replies, it is away for months now and it never came back! But it was quite strange i do dance and do yoga classes and that was kind of embarrassing...
and simply I was not used to not being able to reach my toes. there is nothing left but it needed several (!) month of gentle (!) stretching every day.

I have two main positions, on my feet while moving around and lying down. I don't sit a lot. If I do sit, I'm slouching in a stuffed chair and coming very close to lying down. Sitting at attention doesn't feel right to me.
.........
I don't expect to ever visit a chiropractor. I have seen many of them push a lot of non scientific mumbo jumbo. Some share office space with those selling what amounts to faith healing, with improbable cures for imagined ailments. I think it's possible that some are useful, but I tend to judge according to the company they keep.

I would be in sad shape without a chiro, they are amazing docs, the secret is to go at least every 3-4 weeks whether you think you need it or not. It's one of the first places I go when not feeling well. also look into cbd rich oil. found some on amazon, I believe $40 per bottle and it was what finally took out my chronic very mild occasional lower back pain. Haven't needed it in awhile but if it comes back I know what to use.

Hi

Fisrt of all Thanks for post on Permies. I read your question and understand your concern. You need to try pain o soma 500mg. It is very effective medicine in pain.
I hope it will be very helpful for you.

When my back bothered me I would sleep on the loveseat, head up , feet up, leveling off at the knees and it helped a lot.
Since then I've propped up my bed (6" memory foam on plywood) the same way and sleep better too.

One thing you can do after the pain dissapates is work on your hamstrings. Most people really have no hamstrings. they are important in squatting, bending, kneeling, walking.... I find actually focusing on and trying to lift up from a squat or bent knee position with just your hamstrings...will really get you to focus on using them... go slow they are easy to blow out if they haven't been worked. But they are huge in stabilization when in a squat and or trying to lift with your legs.,.. they will also generate thrust out of a bent knee position. This is often when people cheat with their backs because the quadriceps haven't kicked in yet. Hamstrings are so important in helping keep your body core much stronger especially you butt and lower back.

I have, finally, found something that seems to really, really help my back.

It's a system of exercises designed by a chiropractor to correct the muscle imbalances that lead to back-pain.

Here's a 14 minute TED talk about his work, with a couple of introductory exercises.



And a two hour video with a lot of the background, plus over forty minutes of a detailed introduction to some of the exercises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsbz8qxPGNs

"The core is anything that connects to the pelvis, whether above it or below it. Foundation Training teaches those muscles to work together. It teaches the integrated chains of movement that we are structurally designed to use, as opposed to compartmentalised movement. A crunch is s very compartmentalised movement. My primary exercise, the founder, is an integrated movement. We take your entire posterior chain of muscles and we pull them together. Any pulley system in the world is stronger, exponentially stronger, the more pulleys you add in. Every exercise in Foundation Training adds as many muscles into a given movement as possible, dispersing more force throughout the body, taking friction away from joints, putting that tension into muscles instead."

I'm on day three of the new exercise routine. If it works as well as I hope, I'll start a dedicated thread in a couple of weeks.

Those exercises look excellent.
Also if you dig a lot try an azada, it's much more efficient at moving earth, faster too, and much kinder on my back.

That's a great video! I did some of the excercises and feel better already:)