Self-Treating Lower Back Pain At Home
Hello again from Hackettstown NJ’s Village Family Clinic. Dr. Fedich created a quick video tutorial that outlines some things you can do at home (or in the car) to relieve your lower back pain. Simple things that will cost you no money, no drugs, only a few moments of your time. All of the ideas presented here are things our own Hackettstown NJ chiropractors employ at home to treat lower back pain. Stretching is good preventive care for your back whether your in pain or not.
Of course we want all to know that we are a full service specialty medical facility offering numerous non-invasive pain management services such as acupuncture, physical therapy, and other medical pain management services. So enjoy watching Dr. Fedich’s explanation of the things you can do at home to help relieve your lower back pain. Feel free to contact us to learn more and/or schedule your treatment.
Hey there. Dr. James Fedich, the clinic director here at Village Family Clinic. I'm going to give you the top three ways to help with lower back pain at home without going to the doctor's office, getting any tests, or taking any medications. Three ways you can help your lower back at home. So we're going to go through three of the most simplest ways.
So one of the most common questions that I get asked in 15 years of practice is..”do we use ice or heat”? My answer is going to be when in doubt use ice. Heat can make certain problems worse and ice will never do that. The ice is going to give you a little bit of that analgesic effect which just means it numbs it, gets the pain down. So if your back is hurting or another area point you can always. You can make problems worse with heat. I can't tell you how many hundreds of patients we’ve had with back pain and they jump in the hot tub. They can't walk when they get out. So, when in doubt always use ice for 15 minutes. Give it at least a fifteen minute break.
Another mistake we see is people don’t wrap the ice in a towel. You don't want to put ice directly on the skin. Again protect against any kind of frost burn. So when in doubt throw in an ice pack.
Second tip it's going to be a rolled towel. So this is one of our cheapest and most effective tools in the clinic. We do a couple of things with towels. Just get a regular-sized towel and roll it up. There are a couple different things we can do with the rolled towel. These are great for necks as well. So your next little sore you lay on the table, stretch it out. We do the same thing for the lower back. So we're going to lay on the table with that and that can help out sometimes alleviate the lower back pain, getting that natural curve back to the lower back. Sometimes it feels really great. The other thing we love the curved towels for is in the car. You can see people without really expensive cars, they got no lumbar support. So just having a towel there but giving that low back support can often take a lot of pressure off.
Then finally it's just some simple at-home stretches. So obviously everyone's condition is different. If you want to try to stretch at home this can work out pretty well. I’ll present you with a real simple at home or school routine. We're going to lay on our back and we're just going to do knee to chest. So we're going to bring the leg up, hold it for 10 seconds. A lot of patients have some knee pain so we can’t just grab right here. Or if you're having trouble grabbing, maybe your mobility flexibility or your knees are bothering you. You can take that same rolled towel put it behind the name and use that to help pull it up. Just pull upwards. We’re not going to kill ourselves, just hold it for 10 seconds to each leg three times. Ten seconds do both legs together. Three times ten seconds.
The last one I call the figure four stretch. There's a lot of variation based on how tight you are, but go ahead and cross this leg over and push it down to the ground. You're going to feel that in the glutes and the hamstrings. If you're a little more flexible pick this leg up while you have it crossed over to get a little deeper stretch.
So three simple at home remedies to help your lower back pain. First is going to use ice. When in doubt always use ice. Number two is going to be our real simple rolled towel. Try it in the car or laying on it at home. Third is a simple stretching routine. For those of you where these things are not working out for, you may need more individual attention. We can get that done for you here at village Family Clinic. We do Chiropractor, Physical Therapy, Acupuncture, Nutrition and Pain Management. If you need a little more help give us a call at (908) 813-8200. We hope this helps you out.
