Massage For Low Back Pain

By: Dana M. Brandt, LMT

If you’ve ever battled low back pain, you know how nagging and exhausting it can be.

Pain medications can be helpful for the short-term but can be dangerous when taken for extended periods (and frequently only dull the pain, instead of dealing with it), relief found from injections is ineffective or short-lived, and you also risk changing the composition of your tissue with repeated injections. Some therapies can even make your lower back pain worse. Surely there’s something or multiple things you can do to rid yourself of this pain.

You’re not alone in this pain. In fact, at least 80% of adults will deal with lower back pain at some point in their life. So how can we work to free you of this pain if most of these treatments are ineffective? Good news: You don’t have to give in and deal with this pain. There are solutions out there.

There must be something your doctor can prescribe that can cut through lower back pain, right? If this is so common, surely there is a solid, proven fix!

Unfortunately, there is no one solution; it typically takes a combination of effort and time to get through an episode of pain.

PAIN MEDICATIONS

Pain killers and certain types of muscle relaxers can be helpful short-term to relieve debilitating pain and help you get a good night’s sleep when you’re hurting from an injury or ‘my back went out!’ incident.

But long-term usage of prescription pain medications is not a great management option. And long-term use of over-the-counter medications like ibuprofen and acetaminophen can increase your risk of stomach, cardiac, liver and kidney issues.

STEROID INJECTIONS

Just like pain meds, injections can be helpful for the short-term, immediate treatment of pain or swelling. Multiple injections can cause tissue damage over time, so the use is limited.

CHIROPRACTIC

To treat low back pain, chiropractors use hands-on techniques to manipulate the spine and hips and often incorporate soft tissue work, stretching, electrical stimulation of the muscles and heat or cold application. I personally prefer a Gonstead Chiropractor over other chiropractors. I find that my body responds better to their manipulations.

PHYSICAL THERAPY

A great physical therapist can help to assess and treat low back pain. Once the pain decreases and your quality of life improves again, your physical therapist can help you create a preventive routine of exercise and stretching.

MASSAGE THERAPY

Obviously, I’m a fan of massage therapy! I’ve had great results treating low back pain in my own practice. And there’s a growing body of research to support the use of massage therapy for low back pain!

This study showed that both weekly whole-body Swedish massages for relaxation and weekly massages focused on the lower back and hips were able to alleviate some of the pain – at least 2 to 4 points on the pain scale. This kind of improvement is actually a bit better than the relief found in over-the-counter meds like ibuprofen.

The study also showed that these regular massage sessions can alleviate enough pain for many with chronic back pain to hit the gym for strengthening and aerobic exercise to help reduce more of your pain.

Our goal with your regular massage sessions is to locate the source of your pain and work to lessen it. I want to help to improve your physical function and get your life back on track. I know how much lower back pain can affect your life. From physical activity to time with family to simple activities like tying your shoes or pulling laundry out of the dryer, you always feel lower back pain.