Fitness

The standard treatment for back pain used to be bed rest for prolonged periods, muscle-relaxing drugs, heavy duty painkillers, and even surgery. But many medical professionals now believe that you can sometimes make matters worse by relying too heavily on these options. To be sure, they are still used, but all of these remedies tend to be limited to the more severe or chronic cases.

The first order of business is to listen to your pain. If it comes while you’re moving boxes, for example, or doing some other physical activity, stop what you’re doing. Then consider the following treatments:

1. Take a pain reliever such as aspirin, paracetamol, or ibuprofen.

2. Rest, but not too much. If your back hurts, you’ll want to take it easy for a while. But how long is a while?
Many medical studies report that, in most cases, 48 hours of bed rest is better than a week. Another study has shown that more than four days of bed rest can actually interfere with recovery by weakening your muscles.

3. Get it cold. Ice is a very good anti-inflammatory, so wrap ice cubes or a bag of frozen vegetables in a towel and apply the towel to the sore spot. Applications of ice for 15 to 20 minutes twice a  day decreases the spasms and it can block your pain.

4. Get it hot. Applying a heat pack helps to reduce pain, but heat doesn’t have the anti-inflammatory properties of ice, so make sure to try the cold ice pack first.

5. Activity. Once you have rested, you should do a little bit of gentle activity to get things moving, because you don’t want to stiffen up to much.
Make sure to follow these great back treatments in order to get rid of back pain.