Lower back pain is a reality for people throughout the world. Although it is very common among all of us, lower back pain is not something that should be overlooked. We all use our backs every day. Back pain therefore can become debilitating. It starts to impact our movement, our enjoyment of life and therefore ultimately our happiness.

Although everyone’s degree of pain and presenting symptoms are different, lower back pains and their associated conditions can generally be assessed by an osteopath. As a practitioner at Inlign osteopath Melbourne, lower back pain is probably the most common condition I see each week.

It’s sobering to think that over 80% of the population experience lower back pain at some point in their lives. And 10% of people will experience significant limitation due to back pain. As my lower back pain page indicates, lower back pain is most commonly caused by poor posture. An osteopath can explain the pointers to good posture so you can reduce the damage that posture habits have on your back.

As a rule of thumb, the longer that a pain has been present, the longer it will take to treat. It’s an osteopath’s aim to make each patient completely pain free for the long term. Although we would like this to be the outcome for all patients, sometimes this is not possible. Sometimes the severity of the pain can be reduced but not completely. In rarer circumstances surgery may be required. But surgery is always looked at as a last resort as it’s an invasive permanent procedure that brings its own considerations to the table.

In an osteopathic treatment, an osteopath will assess and examine the causes of a person’s lower back pain and then offer treatments that will best release the back pain and get to the core of the problems. Treatments may include re-aligning the lower back, pelvis, and hips; stimulating the nervous system; relaxing muscle spasms; stretching the muscles that support the ligaments at the back; restoring the normal functions of the vertebrae, among others. An osteopath may also provide advice to patients to help avoid lower back pain i.e. proper posture, diet, exercise and stretching and workplace ergonomics.

To aid recovery and strengthen the associated spinal muscle groups, osteopaths will usually proscribe specific exercises. These exercises aren’t a huge commitment to complete. It’s also not entirely necessary for you to perform them. But you will only be cheating yourself. By completing exercises you are accelerating your recovery time and reducing your reliance on as many further treatments.

To learn more about lower back pain, or to book a treatment, contact Inlign Osteopathy.