Mar 18 2016
The Top 15 Common Causes of Back Pain
It’s estimated that 80 percent of the U.S. population suffers from back pain on a regular basis, yet too often, people wait until the paint is acute or lasting before they search for help, and then visit a MD or hospital where they are given prescription painkillers to mask the problem, not cure it. So it’s more important than ever to examine the actual root causes of back pain, which will allow us to help prevent it and treat it at its cause.
Here are 15 common causes or contributors to back pain:
- Aging
No one has ever won their battle with Father Time, and unfortunately, getting to middle age increases the prevalence of back pain, too. Usually, people start feeling back pain in their 30s and 40s and it could get worse if they don’t do something to treat the cause – not just mask the symptoms.
- Poor fitness
When you’re out of shape and don’t exercise regularly, your muscles atrophy, your flexibility diminishes, and back pain very well could emerge.
- Being overweight
When people are overweight – and especially obese – they force the body to carry around extra weight that it is not equipped to handle, and the knees and back usually suffer.
- It’s in the genes
Some people have a hereditary predisposition towards some conditions that cause back pain, like ankylosing spondylitis, a form of arthritis that affects the spine.
- Disease
Some diseases can cause back pain, like scoliosis, arthritis, kidney stones, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, as well as infection, cancer and tumors.
- Exertion on the job
If you have to lift big boxes, operate machinery at awkward angles, or otherwise do repetitive or unwieldy tasks that twist your spine, you will inevitably feel it.
- Smoking
Nicotine inhibits blood flow to vertebrae and disks, so they could age and break down more rapidly. Regular smoking also prevents the disks in your spine from getting enough nutrients and calcium, as well as inhibiting the body’s ability to heal back pain.
- Race
Some racial groups are prone to back pain. For instance, African American women are two to three times more likely than white women to have their lower spine slip out of place.
- Sitting at the desk
Even if you don’t think you’re doing anything to compromise your back at work, just sitting at your desk all day at the incorrect angle or with bad posture can cause serious back issues.
- Text neck
Dubbed “text neck,” the occurrence of people looking down and leaning into their phones, tablets, etc. at an awkward angle that puts stress on the neck, shoulders, and back has reached epidemic proportions. In fact, for every inch that your head is leaning forward due to gravitational forces, it’s an additional 10 pounds!
- Auto accidents
The most common injury suffered in auto accidents is whiplash, which can hurt the supporting muscles, ligaments and other connective tissues in the neck and upper back – often with long-term or chronic manifestations.
- Sleeping on your stomach
Sleeping on your belly places undue pressure on your joints, muscles and disks. To avoid back pain, sleep on your side or back, which elongates your spine and keeps it in a neutral position.
13. Stress
There is a strong connection between your emotions and the physical symptoms they manifest, and the same is true of back pain. Acute or prolonged stress causes tension in the muscles, joints, inhibits proper neurological function, and even lowers the immune system.
- The wrong shoes
We all know that stilettos and tall high-heels can wreak havoc on your feet, ankles, calves, and cause back problems over time, but in fact, sandals and flip-flops may do the same. Flat shoes like those offer little or no arch support, which can cause back, knee, and foot problems of their own.
- Being too sedentary
Doing nothing can cause back problems, too, especially for people who feel mild back discomfort or pain but over-rest it by staying bed ridden or laying down for days. In fact, low-impact activities like walking, light yoga or swimming boost circulation to the back muscles, which aids recovery.
Apr 8 2016
Why big purses and high fashion may be causing your back and neck problems
The reality is that purses and bags women are carrying around these days are bigger – and heavier – than ever, and that’s causing some huge health problems. Chiropractors and doctors even have a name for this serious health issue – The Pocketbook Effect.
The weight of just a purse might seem inconsequential, but consider that you carry it and hold it sometimes an hour or more every day while walking or standing. It’s no wonder that half od working Americans report having back pain, which we spend $50 billion collectively to treat and try to remedy each year. In fact, the number one disabler of people 45 and younger in the U.S. is lower back pain!
Why your purse is hurting you
What happens when you carry a purse? With all of the weight unevenly distributed on only one strap, the burden of the purse causes asymmetry in the body, particularly in the neck, shoulders, and spine.
Independent studies that surveyed 1,000 women who regularly carried purses found that a significant percentage suffered pain or health problems in these areas:
84% Shoulders
57% Neck
53% Back
20% Arms
What happens to the body when we carry a purse?
It’s not just bearing the weight of a purse that is debilitating; it’s the alteration to your natural walking gait. When you shoulder a purse on one side, it throws off your natural walk with arms and legs swinging fluidly and evenly.
Over time, that puts your muscles at a severe imbalance, altering your posture. This puts more stress on the dominant shoulder (women tend to carry bags on their dominant shoulder, so on the right side if they are right-handed), causing the muscles – particularly the trapezius muscle – to become bigger.
It also causes the muscles in the spine to compensate for the extra weight, which often sends the opposite side of the spine into a spasm. That spasm can affect your supporting muscles and especially your lower back and sacrum (bone at the base of the spin,) causing stiffness and undue tension.
The long-term burden of carrying a heavy purse:
Due to that tension, stress, and spasm, women who carry heavy and/or ill-fitting purses or handbags often develop:
Arthritis in the neck
Tension headaches
Scoliosis (curvature of the spine)
Kyphosis (hunchback)
Painful osteoarthritis
Full-blown degenerative joint disease in predisposed shoulders
Upper-back (trapezius) and neck (cervical paraspinals) muscles strain
Numbness and tingling in the arm from nerve microtrauma
What you can do to fix the Pocketbook Effect:
Switch shoulders periodically to avoid undue strain on your dominant side and balance the effects. You can remind yourself by switching every block or some similar system.
Pull a bag on wheels if you can’t avoid significant weight or you’re using it for work, travel, or the gym.
Texting or looking down at your phone while carrying your purse really compounds the damage, flattening out the natural curve in your neck.
Look for bags with wider straps, which distributes the weight over a larger surface area and reduces strain exponentially.
Wearing the bag diagonally (the strap resting on the opposite shoulder and the bag on the hip) helps the trunk bare most of the weight and protects the back.
Try not to carry your bag in the crook of your elbow because this will quickly cause tendinitis.
Make sure the straps of the purse fit your body correctly. If the bag sits too high up or too low, it will alter how you walk, bumping in your hips or stomach as it swings, and take you even more out of your natural gait.
Even better, try to use bags that have different strap options that let you hold it on your shoulder, adjust it for cross-body carrying, or hold it by the handles.
Reducing the weight of your purse:
Health professionals recommend never carrying around more than 10 percent of your body weight, and less than half of that for one-strap purses or bags.
According to studies, these are the biggest and heaviest items in women’s purses:
The cumbersome wallet.
Women often carry a wallet inside their purse, filled with heavy coins and way too many credit cards, gift cards, receipts, etc. Believe it or not that weight can really add up, so empty it out every night and take only what your really need for the day in a small wallet.
Huge key chains.
Unless you’re a janitor, you probably don’t need to carry an enormous snakes nest of a key chain. All of that metal starts to add on weight so go lighter and make two or three key chains that you can grab for different occasions.
Coupons, receipts, and business cards.
But aren’t these things just paper? They are, but that’s why we underestimate them when stacking them into our purse. Have you ever carried around a book? Those are made of paper, too, and they can get pretty heavy!
Cosmetics
All of those plastic, glass and metal bottles, tubes, containers take up a ton of space and can easily add up to several pounds.
The purse!
Some high-fashion purses and bags are ridiculously huge and cumbersome these days, especially designer brands with weighty zippers, studs, and the like. Of course you want to look good, but is insignificant fashion really worth long-term health damage and injuries? I’m sure you can find a purse that is light, comfortable and functional – and looks good.
By Norm Schriever • Uncategorized • Tags: Back pain, big purses, carrying purses and bags, chiropractic for back pain, fashion back pain, heavy purses, purses cause back pain, text neck, the Pocketbook Effect