Massage and Low Back Pain

Find yourself slow to get up due to stiffness, don’t want to rush to turn because you may hurt your back or pick something up. We are all familiar with this discomfort and let it limit us or even worse chose pain as a way to live. If the pain is from bulging disc or herniated, pulled muscles or fall years ago or even surgery in the vertebral bones and now you ache every day, massage can offer some needed comfort/relief.

You have been doing the stretches OR NOT, you have been icing or heating OR NOT! You have accepted that my back hurts and the problem could be the gluteus group or hip muscles OR NOT! One of the most unaccepted areas people do not address with low back pain is the hips and gluteus and even the leg muscles. Why would they be the problem? The bones of the low back include the lumbar, the pelvis and sacrum which are three strong bones of good size when all put together. The muscles that make up this group include your abdominals, quadrates Lumborum (look them up) and over 25 more muscles of the pelvis region that all work to stabilize your core body area. Not to mention the leg muscles that attach to the pelvis bone. So when you grab your back in pain, Do not ignore your butt or hips they are contributing factors to your pain. 

So what can massage do regardless of how the pain originated? These groups of muscles have developed trigger points and have shortened due to major tension. Your first line of defense at home is start stretching these areas, OR NOT! You can find several stretches on line and see which ones work best. Some of the most basic is brining the knees to the chest while lying on your back and toe touches. 

Your massage therapist session should hopefully include heat before they start working in that area and give attention to other parts of the body to allow you to relax and the heat to penetrate.  The session should also include some passive stretching for those areas. Once they move into working the back, gluteus and hips they should be able to identify your triggers and tension within the various muscles. And this cannot be done without communicating with you. The work at some point will be deep in order to penetrate the deeper muscles but it should always be within in our pain level. The speed should be slow to moderate and the direction will vary.

Your first session as in any massage where deep work is done and pain is experienced, should follow with a strong suggestion of icing when you get home.  Your first session should be an hour and if you plan properly with your therapist you can do half hour session each week or every other, but they will not be full body (quality over quantity). Financially if you can do hour session keep them going and once in a while take a week off from massage. Sessions should progress to a point where daily pain is no longer taking over, but that means you have to do your part. Understand massage therapist cannot fix slip, bugling or herniated disc and if your pain and muscle tension arise from those issues relief is what the massage can offer.  If you notice you not getting relief after a consistent month of session find a better therapist.

http://www.webmd.com/back-pain/news/20110705/study-massage-helps-treat-low-back-pain long but a good article :)

Low back pain and medication is not a way of life!!     

Sharon Scubla LMT

Balance Health and Wellness Center 631 225-2623 schedule now :)