Yoga has many benefits, but perhaps the biggest benefit is how it can help those who suffer from back pain. Back pain may be caused by many things. More often than not, though, it is a result of tight muscles or weakened muscles in the trunk and legs. Through the use of yoga moves to relieve back pain, you can help to tone and strengthen your muscles so they offer better support for your back and reduce pain.

Area of the Body To Focus On

In order to properly use yoga moves to relieve back pain, you need to understand the areas of the body that need to be worked through the poses. In the lower body, you want to work the hamstrings and the hips. Loosening these areas and increasing blood flow will strengthen them, allowing for healing of any pain that is occurring. You also want to use poses that will increase blood flow and gently stretch your back and stomach muscles.

What To Avoid

Make sure that you avoid any poses that are to complex. The poses you use should be easy and allow you to concentrate on keeping your breath steady throughout the pose. You also do not want to do any move that causes pain. Slight discomfort as you stretch is fine, but pain of any kind is not okay. Finally, make sure that you are doing the poses properly. You may want to attend a yoga class or consult with an expert to learn the poses before starting.

Examples of Poses to Use

There are many different poses that you could use as part of your yoga for back pain routine. Here is a list of poses that are all great for helping with back pain:

*Supine hamstring stretch

*Two-knee twist

*Sphinx

*Pigeon

*Thread the needle

*Legs up the wall

Using yoga for back pain is a great way for you to help relieve nagging pain on your own. It does  not take a lot of time to do a few poses each day, but the results can be amazing.

Millions of people nationwide deal with chronic pain for a diverse range of reasons. If you are one of these sufferers, you have several pain management procedures to explore, ranging from relatively conservative to more serious methods such as surgery. Here are three avenues you will likely consider.

Conservative Pain Management Procedures

If you are having mild to moderate muscle aches and pains, you might try these conservative pain management procedures:

• Chiropractic Work: This form of bodywork has an emphasis on improving joint and spinal mobility and can relieve pain symptoms in many people.
• Non Weight-Bearing Exercise: Swimming and cycling are some examples of actions that can help in pain reduction.
• Physical Therapy: A practitioner can help you with exercises, extremity and spinal manipulation, and other techniques to help you reduce pain.

Medication

Drugs you can take for pain relief run the gamut from simple non-steroidal anti-inflammatory options (NSAIDs) to strong opioids such as morphine and fentanyl. Some types are available over the counter and some will need to be prescribed and even administered by a medical professional to guarantee safe use.

Minimally Invasive Options

If the above methods have not worked for you, there are other choices to discuss with your doctor. These include:

• Spinal Cord Stimulation: This technique, involving the insertion of a wire and a mechanical device, has proven to be highly effective at helping relieve nerve pain and dysfunction due to a variety of conditions.
• Lumbar Sympathetic Block: Performed to treat leg pain, this procedure is done using injection needles in one of three main ways: injection of a substance that destroys the lumbar sympathetic nerves or a local anesthetic that is long acting, or the employment of radio-frequency energy to eliminate problems with the nerves.
• Epidural Steroid Injection: Typically used for pain in the leg and back or arm/hand and neck, these drugs (usually a solution of an anti-inflammatory steroid, local anesthetic, and sometimes other substances, all long acting) are put into the spine’s epidural area.

Discography, also referred to as a discogram, is a procedure used by medical professionals in order to help diagnose back issues. In a typical case, a surgeon will recommend using discography for treating back pain in order to identify a particular disc that is creating pain and what subsequent treatment steps should be undergone.

Who Benefits From It?

Due to the fact that the procedure is considered invasive (it involves a medical professional inserting needles into a disc), it is generally done after other back pain treatments – physical therapy, medication, injection therapy, and more – have failed to alleviate the condition. Patients have typically been experiencing back pain for at least four to six months.

How Does It Work?

When using discography for treating back pain, an x-ray dye is injected into spinal discs and the patient is asked whether pain is occurring. An x-ray image is created that may show the presence of tears or fissures in the disc lining. It is important to note that this measure is less concerned with the disc’s anatomy and more interested in its physiology, or whether it is painful. This is because sometimes abnormalities in discs do not lead to pain, therefore simply the presence of a deviation is not on the face of it something to be concerned about.

What Will Be the Outcome?

A doctor will take the results of your discography and combine the information generated with the returns of other assessments and physical examinations in order to make a determination about whether the disc is the root of your symptoms. Data may be taken as a deciding factor in whether or not surgery will be a good option moving forward and if so, what kind of surgery and which discs. A potential operation undergone after this type of test is a spinal fusion, where the disc levels are joined together to get rid of an internally disrupted, pain-inducing disc.

If you are reading this on any other blog than Comprehensive Pain Management Center or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit. You can find us  on Twitter via @CompPainMgmt. Come and visit our blog at http://www.compainmc.com/blog/.

Back pain can be crippling. It can cause you to stop doing what you love. It can even make you feel like you are not yourself. Finding ways to relieve your back pain can be difficult. What works for one person might not work for another. In order to find the pain relief procedure that works for you, you have to go in and talk to a pain management specialist. There are a few ways that your back pain might get stabilized and minimized:

1.       Exercise: Exercise that aims to increase strength, flexibility and range of motion can help with back pain. Make sure to talk with a doctor before starting any exercise.
2.       Behavioral Modification: Sometimes relieving pain can be as simple as employing breathing or relaxing techniques, and avoiding activities that are extremely strenuous.
3.       Superficial Heating or Cooling: Oftentimes superficial heating and cooling is used with exercise to relieve back pain. This can be done with hot or cold packs, ultrasound or diathermy.
4.       Electrotherapy: Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) uses low-voltage stimulation to reduce back pain. Again, make sure to consult a doctor before starting this treatment.
5.       Medications: There are pain medications such as analgesics, narcotics, neuromodulation or anti-inflammatories. Some people also saw positive results while using muscle relaxants, antidepressants and anticonvulsants.
6.       Injections: Injection procedures to relieve your back pain allow medications to be directly delivered to joints, ligaments, muscles and nerves.
7.       Surgically Implanted Electrotherapy Devices: Implantable spinal cord stimulators (SCS) and peripheral nerve stimulators can help deliver electrotherapy right to the source.

Because there are so many different treatment options to relieve your back pain, you can feel confident that the doctors will be able to find a way to help decrease your pain. Many pain management clinics offer safe and caring service to help you increase your quality of life. Stop living in pain. Find the treatment that works for you.

If you are reading this on any other blog than Comprehensive Pain Management Center or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit. You can find us  on Twitter via @CompPainMgmt. Come and visit our blog at http://www.compainmc.com/blog/.