Lower Back pain. A very debilitating condition

Acupuncture and Lower Back Pain

Disk damage usually occurs by the degenerative process and they are not normally caused by accidents. Going in for back surgery may not a permanent solution to the problem as there are risks that the surgery may not be successful. It is important to treat the disk injury as soon as possible to minimize the possibility of disk herniation. The cause of the disk injury may be related to poor posture while walking and standing, lifting a heavy weight and even being seated for longer periods of time. Disk injuries can also be caused due to emotional stress which in turn leads to disk degeneration. It has been reported that individuals who are going through extremely stressful periods in their life complain about lower back pain. There has been research done that prove that prolonged stress can reduce the blood flow to most of the organs, tissues and to the muscles as well. As the blood flow slows down, the muscles lose their litheness and become tight.

Using acupuncture to treat back problems is certainly a very positive approach towards the relief of the pain. Acupuncture starts off by stimulating the localized muscles which rectifies the distortion and also tries to reduce the biomechanical imbalances. Acupuncturists considers that any ailment or pain is not restricted to that part of the body alone. The internal organs are interrelated and thus the treatment is applied to the entire body so that all the imbalances in the autonomic nervous system are corrected. Stress is one of the prime reasons for lower back pain however; we cannot eliminate stress but our aim should be to recover quickly and easily from it so that we can reduce the harmful effects of stress as much as possible.

Treating lower back pain using steroids leads to various side-effects and affects our system by causing gastric irritation and liver damage as well. You can only bring about short term relief with the use of pain relief medications and anti-inflammatory medicines; however, acupuncture is certainly a better option as it does not have any side-effects. Use of pain killers will actually inhibit the production of prostaglandins which are substances that also aid in increasing blood circulation. Hence, with the use of pain killers, pain can be reduced but the blood circulation to the muscles is also affected and hence, true recovery of our system does not occur. Acupuncture works in the exact opposite method by enhancing the blood circulation in the body. As the circulation of the blood improves in the tissues, relaxation occurs in the muscles and thus pain can be reduced in this manner. However, in some cases, with the increase in blood circulation, pain intensifies which will then lead to tissue repair and then muscle relaxation takes place.

Acupuncturists stress that proper circulation in the body is a very important factor to eliminate muscle fatigue and through proper blood circulation, the tissues get properly nourished and healthy tissues are created. Normally ten to twelve sittings or more may by required of this therapeutic intervention to ease lower back pain as no promising results can be obtained by just one or two sessions.

References:
Acupuncture Treatment
Medscape

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