Massage For Lower Back Pain
If you’ve ever battled lower back pain, you know how nagging and exhausting it can be.
Pain medications can be dangerous to take for extended periods (and frequently only dull the pain, instead of dealing with it), relief found from injections is ineffective or short-lived, and some therapies can even make your lower back pain worse. Surely there’s something 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.
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.
Whenever I get a client in, who has hurt their back or neck really badly, the answer to the question ‘what happened?’, ranges from:
I was brushing my teeth
I was cleaning the bath
I was washing my hair
All it takes is one muscle to get naffed off, and it phones all its friends to join in.
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! 9 times of 10, lower back pain, in my experience, is coming from tension in the hamstrings.
If I ask a client what movements they are finding challenging to do, and bending over to put their shoes on, or tie their laces is an answer, then I’m thinking, yup, hamstrings.
This study showed that both full body massage, and 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 remove much of the pain completely.
My 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 laces, getting dressed and even driving!
What I want is to give you the confidence to get back into the arena doing what you enjoy doing, back on the golf course, playing with the kids, getting back into the gym.
Let’s work together to get you on the path to freedom from lower back pain. You deserve a healthy lifestyle, free from pain. Ready to get started? Book your appointment here elizabethbandeen.co.uk and let’s get started.
Woohoo!
In best health
Elizabeth