How is your back healing after an injury?
We want to do things to promote healing and not do things that further hurt or injure ourselves.
A little rest is a good thing but studies have proven that movements are also very important so laying in bed for a week is a no no.
Maybe taking a pill for a few days seems like a good thing. Take some pills, wait for the pain to go away. Simple solution right? Well, maybe not.
During the healing process Your body lays down scar tissue. NSAIDS such as ibuprofen actually make the scar tissue formation scattered and less effective making it much easier for you to re injure that area.
Ice can give you a similar decrease in inflammation while allowing your scar tissue formation during the healing process to form properly making the new scar patch stronger in the long run.
Muscle spasms are a common symptom with back pain. A spasm is a result to an insult or injury to your nervous system. Improper signals from your nerve endings cause excitation of your brain that sends a signal to the muscle causing the spasm.
How about a muscle relaxant? Well studies also show that these pills lengthen the overall process it takes for you to get better. What happens is that your spasm is there for a reason and that is to protect the area from moving it to much. If you take these natural protectors/spasms away to soon in the healing process you run the risk of re injury again. Your body will shut the spasm off when there is normalization to your nervous system.
A study compared Chiropractic spinal adjustments (which stimulate the nervous system and improve the nerve signals to the brain) to muscle relaxants using placebos with both the pills and sham/fake adjustments. The chiropractic adjustment came out the clear winner in overall pain reduction.
Dr John Dallman, Your Grand Forks North Dakota Chiropractor!