Your Guide to Lower Back Pain

Nobody deserves to live their life with constant back pain. No matter how severe your pain, it’s important to know that there are a wide variety of treatment options available that could be helping to alleviate your discomfort. Osteopathy is just one of the avenues you can take to address your lower back pain. To help you figure out whether visiting an osteopath is the right choice for you we’ve compiled a beginner’s guide to lower back pain, osteopathy, and the way they interact.

This blog discusses some of the common causes of lower back pain, as well as diving into the ways that osteopathy can provide effective treatment for a number of different lower back conditions. If you’re ready to kick off your health journey with an osteo appointment, contact The Whole Body Clinic today.

Struggling With Back Pain? You’re Not Alone

Back pain affects up to 80% of Australians. That’s a scary statistic! For some, this can be minor pains that come on suddenly, for short amount of time. For others, this pain can be debilitating, even a chronic condition that affects their daily lives. Whether dull or intense, fleeting or unrelenting, back pain is something you’re going to want to address.

Leaving a problem with the hopes that it will get better only heightens the risk of you hurting yourself further down the track – causing you to need time off work, leaving you unable to exercise, and impacting your ability to complete your regular daily routine. For people suffering chronic back pain, it can also cause a huge emotional strain, having a severe negative impact on their mental health. To put it plainly: back pain is incredibly common, but the sooner you address it the stronger your body is going to be in the long run.

Common Causes of Lower Back Pain

Lower back pain can feel different for everyone. Different levels of pain, including dull aches and sharp jabs, felt all throughout lower back areas. There are likewise a wide variety of reasons people commonly start to feel this pain, including:

• Muscle spasming and cramping
• Being overweight
• Having poor posture
• Having weak muscle tone
• Arthritis or inflammation of the spine
• Sitting for long periods of time, particularly if you work at desk jobs
• Needing to bend constantly in your daily life, or needing to lift heavy objects and using improper techniques

How Osteopathy Can Help

When you’re struggling with stubborn back pain that just won’t go away, seeing a healthcare professional is vital for your body’s overall wellbeing. Having an expert diagnose and provide effective management for your condition is going to be essential to your long-term health, and an osteopath could just be the expert you’re looking for.

Most back pain is primarily musculoskeletal in nature, and an osteo is fully qualified to assess, diagnose, and treat all varieties of musculoskeletal conditions. They’ll be able to offer evidence-based advice to guide your lifestyle to better protect your lower back – including helping with diet, exercise routines, and posture. An osteopath is also able to work with your GP, physician, or surgeon for any other medication or imaging required as a part of your treatment.

What Does Osteopathic Treatment Involve?

If you’ve never visited an osteopath before, chances are you won’t know much about what this sort of treatment actually looks like. Osteopathic therapy involves many ‘hands on’ techniques, adjusting and helping the muscles, joints, and connective tissue in the lower back and its connected structures. Not only that, but an osteo will equip their knowledge of the wider body to target problems areas that may be affecting your lower back – such as hip muscles, upper back muscles, and the structure of the spine. By releasing tension and tightness in these surrounding areas, an osteo can effectively alleviate pressure and pain within the lower back.

Here are a few common techniques used by osteopaths:

• Soft tissue massage
• Dry needling
• Rehabilitation exercise
• Mobilisation
• Stretching
• Muscle energy release
• Articulation

Book an Osteo Appointment to Manage Your Lower Back Pain

Whatever form your back pain takes, there’s no point trying to just ‘live with it’. You deserve to go about your life not only pain-free, but confident that your body is supported and in the healthiest position possible. If you’re looking for a natural solution to your lower back pain, visiting an osteopath could be making a world of difference. Contact The Whole Body Clinic today to book your first session and nip that back pain in the bud before it gets any worse.