Back pain can range from irritating to debilitating. At the end of a long day, it’s hard to tell how bad your back pain is, but there’s one thing for sure: you want it to go away, and quick!
Back pain hits most of us, at one time or another. 80% of us will suffer from pain in our back severe enough to cause us to visit a physician at some point in our lives.
Many look for the answer at the pharmacy and pop a pain pill, or in the severest cases, we might start to think differently about the surgical option. People are often too eager to try painkillers and surgery without first exploring other options.
Once upon a time, the choice may have been stark: take a pill, or go under the knife. But now the choice isn’t so stark; you can turn to a less invasive solution to your back pain, something to give you the stress and pain relief that you deserve.
Nobody wants to take pain pills unless they have to, but on the other hand, recuperation times for even the most minimal back surgery (if there is such a thing!) might be between one and three months.
Nowadays, however, there are two minimally-invasive options which can give better results than either of the old options, which not only have no recuperation time as a ‘plus’ but also leave you feeling great!
Always respect your back, because it’s the only one you’ll ever have
Despite the inconvenience back pain or joint pain can and does cause, we usually end up taking our poor backs for granted! And we put them under a lot of pressure!
Lifting things incorrectly – as we know from those occupational health commercials we’ve all seen – can strain the lower back, introducing a tension which doesn’t go away without treatment and therapy.
No matter what our job, a time comes when we have to move unnaturally or retain the same position for a long time. That is having an impact, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.
Spending eight or nine hours at the desk is not good for your back, even if it might be good for your bank account! You’ll get tense, in your upper and lower back, along the nape of your spine and underneath your neck where your shoulder blades meet. Unfortunately, it’s no accident they call a company’s workhorse a ‘backbone’ of the organization!
Most employers now make allowances to alleviate back pain. If you work somewhere that doesn’t, however, or your back pain is not going away, options to alleviate your back pain do exist which don’t involve taking a pill or visiting the surgeon.
Taking away back problems can be notoriously difficult – even for a skilled surgeon or chiropractor. It will help to experiment with therapy and commit to a regular practice. Commit to tailored therapies or treatments and you could avoid the costs of upwards of $100,000 that back surgery might entail!
Shiatsu massage
So, what are your therapeutic options?
Well first, there’s shiatsu massage. Shiatsu means “a finger pressure” in Japanese, if you’re wondering. It’s a type of bodywork that came to Japan, historians think, from ancient China.
The original massage modality was called anma which was adapted from an even older practice: tui na. Shiatsu massage therapy in its incarnation today was developed by Tokujiro Namikoshi, who was born in 1905 and died only recently in 2000. Namikoshi set up a shiatsu college in the 1940’s.
Shiatsu involves targeting a pressure point with the fingers, the thumbs and sometimes the feet and the palms, forcing a stretching and a manipulation or mobilization of the joints.
Shiatsu has really come of age in the last ten years, helping people across the world address their back pain non-invasively.
Only recently getting a shiatsu meant getting a masseuse, but this is no longer the case. There are gadgets which can perform a shiatsu massage for you, like the InstaShitasu+ Neck and Back Massager with Heat.
Imagine being able to have a shiatsu massage in your own time and at your own pace, never needing to book a masseuse, not even needing to leave to go anywhere!
TENS therapy
Less obvious, but just as effective, is TENS therapy. It works by delivering gentle electric stimulation to muscle groups by a series of wires, which you attach to the painful area with soft adhesive pads.
You’ll feel a little tingling sensation, which are the electrical impulses being delivered to the area of back pain.
TENS therapy works by blocking pain signals, the ones which travel along your spinal cord up to the brain.
“Why would I want to block pain, instead of fixing it?” you might conceivably ask. Well, your body produces pain sensations for the purpose of alerting us that something is wrong. But if you’re already trying to treat a pain in your upper or lower back, why do you need to be reminded over and over again about this problem?
Do something about back pain, but not necessarily the obvious thing
Back pain is one of the most common ailments in today’s world, with people of all ages and backgrounds suffering.
Often causing a severe reduction in the quality of life, back pain is debilitating and painful. People are often too eager to try painkillers and surgery without first exploring other options.
Painkillers which simply mask the problem are short-term, and surgery doesn’t come without its risks and expenses. Alternative therapies provide a more gentle treatment, helping to ease pain and discomfort, without any side effects or risks.
If you’re tempted to take too many painkillers, you may be taking risks in how you’re managing your body. The painkillers could be having a negative effect, interfering with organs like the heart or the kidneys.
While a few have a somewhat different chemistry to opium, most prescription painkillers are in fact derived in some way from an opiate or they are a synthetic opiate. While opiates are not problematic in moderation, they can prove to be addictive.
truMedic have manufactured a revolutionary heat massager in the hope of giving you an alternative option. Fully portable and with its own battery pack with enough charge for hours and hours of use, the InstaShitasu+ Neck and Back Massager with Heat can help to lessen back and neck strains, allowing you to get on with whatever it is you want to do without needing to constantly think about your back pain.
Author bio: Anthony Izzo is Vice President of TruMedic.
