Understanding Back Pain and Computer Safety Practices Ergonomics

One in every five American experienced muscle fatigue low back pain sometime in their life. This is to say that one in every five American injured his or her back quite some time ago. He or she went to the doctor. Some medications and some physical therapy were prescribed. The physical therapy either did not help much or it made the back pain worse. After several weeks to months of painful physical therapy, he or she went through other testing including x-rays or maybe an MRI scan. He or she may have been referred for some special steroid injections into his or her back of which he or she had at least three after some tests. Those injections may have helped temporarily, but did not significantly resolve the severe pain he or she is having. He or she believed the surgery is his or her last resort. Eventually, he or she underwent the surgery which he or she had delayed several months or maybe years. He or she may have felt some improvement after a period of rehabilitation. However, he or she continue to have significant pain in his or her upper back neck shoulder pain lower back. By this time many months or maybe a year have past and he or she is not able to do the things he or she enjoy and may not have been able to return to work. He or she is now trying many different medications including opiate containing medications. He or she has been seeing many different doctors referred by his or her different friends who also suffer pain. Most of the doctors he or she went to tell them there is not much else they can do for him or her and what he or she needs to do is learn to live with his or her lower back and hip pain.

Please read on if any of this sounds familiar to you. Hopefully, there may be some things that can be done to help you.

Multidisciplinary Approach 

Multiple interventions need to be utilized to improve your condition because there is no single solution to the problem when you fall into the unfortunate circumstance of suffering from chronic low back pain. A ‘multidisciplinary’ approach is a combination of different treatments that may help even if some of these treatments have been tried before but not in the same combination. This multidisciplinary approach cannot be emphasized enough.

You need to change the way you sit. It is recommended to consult an ergonomic professional for review ergonomic office chairs for changing your work environment. You need to start to exercise regularly. You need to start massaging your body or sit in a computer chairs with massage if you have no time for physical therapy massage. It is not likely to gain the complete healing by simply changing your task chair that you spent 9 hours a day on. But, the use of back suport cushion in ergonomic chairs will be proven helpful in time. Combining our different complementary intervention with your new executive office chair with heat massage, the pain will go away before you know it.

Understanding Lower Back Pain and Hip Pain

Pain is the signal that something in our body has been damaged or is about to be damaged. However this simplistic view of pain does not explain why you still have pain after all the back strain/sprain tratment you have been through. Especially, when your doctor has told you there is nothing they can find wrong -- and the surgery has removed what has been causing damage -- and you are all healed and -- yet you still have pain.

Most of people, even including health care professionals, have a very simplistic view of what pain is. A specialized nerve ending senses this pain and sends a message to our spinal cord and up to our brain where we then realize the pain. After all, the existence of pain is to tell when we are injuring ourselves or when we are about to injure ourselves.  Our body is an amazing network of system and organs that work together to keep us whole and to keep us alive.

Neurotransmitters Effects Muscles Low Back Pain

Our pain feeling varies.  Sometime, our pain seems to be somewhat less when we are distracted, such as watching a movie.  However, by the same token, our pain may be worsen when we are frustrated or angry. A new concept of pain is emerging that can explain these things. It is called neurotransmitter.

Neurotransmitters are naturally occurring chemicals used by our nervous system to transmit pain message.  There are many different types of them. Some of these neurotransmitters (such as endorphins) can help decrease pain. However, there are other neurotransmitters that may increase pain. Chronic pain is probably the nervous system has an imbalance of these naturally occurring neurotransmitters. It is like a chemical switch has been turned on that doesn’t turn off; the neurotransmitters that increase pain seem to be working in excess while those help decrease pain do not seem to be working at all. In these situations, our body system is not working the way it should.

The pain message being sent does not signify something is being damaged or is about to be damaged. Thus it is not a useful message received. For example, people have a disease process such as degenerative arthritis, they continue to receive pain message which are not useful because there is nothing they can particularly do about it. This theory of an imbalance of chemical neurotransmitters also explains why our emotional state and behaviors can affect our pain.

Effects of Behavior and Emotions Basic Strategies in Stress Management

It is believed that our behaviors and our emotional state changes the chemistry in our nervous system. Consequently, they either increase or decrease our pain level. We can now understand that there are many other approaches that may help manage the chronic back pain that you may be suffering from because of this new yet much more complex concept of pain.

Complementary Interventions

They are referred as ‘complementary’ or ‘alternative’ medicines because they are not exactly associate with medical treatment and yet they include traditional medical interventions. Many of these useful interventions may be the best approach for the patient suffering from chronic pain.  Cold and Hot Therapy Frequently asked by patients look for complementary back strain/sprain treatment.

Gentle massage to reduce painful muscle spasms has significantly help to reduce pain.  Executive office chair with heat massage yield the same effect while helping patient staying on their jobs.  It may not be the perfect cure for lower back pain.  The ergonomics posture is promoted for patients that need stress relief in business.    Weekly acupuncture treatment can be made complemetary with traditional massage and hot chair massage . They are combination treatment.

In traditional Chinese medicine which dated back in thousands years, acupuncture is used to create a balance of an energy force called the Chi within the body. Based upon some Chinese medicine principles, the tiny sterile needles are inserted into the skin at specific points. And it has been shown to alter those naturally occurring neurotransmitters.

Besides massage and acupuncture, exercise is another complementary intervention. Sometimes, the pain you suffer is so great that general exercise just aggravates it. However, it is known that exercise helps circulation and decrease pain. In the process, it changes those neurotransmitters.

Such as Tai Chi, Yoga, or Pilate are gentle exercise that utilize rhythmic movement, breathing and relaxation techniques to increase body’s strength, balance, endurance, and mobility. These combinations of gentle strengthening and stretching movement relieves the upper back neck shoulder pain and muscle fatigue low back pain.  They helps strengthen the lower back and abdominal musculature and carries the nutrients that you body needs.

Emotional Consequences of Pain and Stress

Besides physical components of pain, there is emotional consequences of chronic pain. Anger, frustration, and depression will alter your neurochemistry to actually increase your pain. By counseling strategies with a combination of meditation, breathing techniques, these emotional consequences can be effectively treated.

For some patients, some basic strategies in stress management like listening to music and moving gently to the music can change those neurotransmitters in a positive way. It helps to decrease the pain. It is important for the patients to do something they enjoy, such as dancing or reading something humorous, on a daily basis. Don't let pain stops you from living the life you deserve. Before eliminating your pain completely, it is important to be more active and do the things you like to do and enjoy your lives. A combination of these interventions with more traditional interventions and correct ergonomics posture in your daily activities may be proven healing if you do learn to live with your pain.

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