Lower Back Pain - This is how I treat it.

One of my favourite areas to treat is Lower Back Pain (LBP). Over 80% of people in the western world will experience LBP at some point in their lives, and as someone who has had LBP I know only too well how horrific it is (not to mention how grumpy it made me!).

As an Osteopath I have many different techniques at my disposal but if there is one thing that I stand by it is that your treatment must be tailored and bespoke to you.

How I treat LBP in an 84 year old retired builder will - and should! - be different from how I would treat a 28 year old who has injured their back in the gym lifting weights. Your treatment should be bespoke and unique to you, because let's face it, there is only one you in this world and your treatment should reflect that.

The essential part is to diagnose what is the root cause of your pain. Osteopaths are trained to diagnose and view the body holistically. So don't be surprised if I end up treating a part of your body appears to be disconnect from your pain, but this is all part of treating you in a bespoke, personalised way.

At this stage I have worked out what is causing your pain, let's say, for example, it is a disc herniation.

The first stage is to decrease the inflammation as this will ease the pain. When a disc herniations occurs the nucleus in the centre of the 'disc' has broken through. Our bodies have never encountered this nucleus before, it is almost viewed as a 'foreign' entity by the body's immune system. This causes a huge inflammatory response.

Again, the exact treatment to reduce the inflammation and pain varies from easing 'trigger points' in the muscle to acupuncture but the overarching principal is to increase blood flow because this will reduce the inflammatory markers that are driving a lot of your pain.

Once the initial pain has eased we can look to improve the range of motion of the spinal joints. Again, the exact techniques depends on you, but spinal manipulations might work well for our 28 year old gym goer, whilst mobilisation the spinal joints might be more appropriate for our 84 year old. Or it might be that you have muscular restrictions that are inhibiting your spinal range of motion. Whatever it is I will seek to ease in order to restore normal function of your spine.

The reason for improving movement is that when we have LBP we often 'hold' ourselves differently, tighter. We sub-consciously turn with our hips and shoulders hoping to reduce rotation in our lower back. Whilst this is understandable movement is hugely important to further reducing pain. When exactly it is safe to do so depends on you, and how you are recovering.

The final part of your recovery is strengthening. I ask my patients to do one exercise lasting 5 minutes a day. That's it. Now I know that asking people to do exercise is not popular but I frame it like this;

'There are 168 hours in a week. Our appointments are 20 to 30 minutes long. If you want to stop seeing me regularly then all you have to do is 5 minutes a day'.

One of my values is to provide lasting relief to my patients. We achieve this by enabling you to take control. A real healthcare solution involves you having the knowledge to solve your own pain.

For some patients with long standing problems and pain it is often useful to have a maintenance session every 6-12 weeks. The exact timeframe we will we work together but this is an opportunity for me to remove any potential problems before they manifest into pain.

So that's it. That is how I treat LBP. A personalised, bespoke treatment approach balance against improving blood flow and seeking to restore normal movement to your spine before giving you the ability to control your own pain levels into the future.

I hope this has been helpful, if you have any questions then you can email me at:

info@hughmackayosteo.com