8 Treatments for Spine Pain Management

Can you no longer live with your back pain? Spinal pain is severe. When you start feeling back pain, this could be a symptom of something more severe occurring in your spine.

And if you don’t treat the pain, it can result in bad side effects.

For most spinal pain sufferers, finding relief is almost impossible without surgery.

Fortunately, there are ways to alleviate spinal pain and distress. While spinal surgery is always an option, there are modern medicines and treatments to try before undergoing surgery.

Start today and become pain-free. Here are 8 effective treatments for spine pain management.

1. Exercise

Exercise helps us more than just keeping excess weight off.

When you exercise, you’re exerting motion. This helps restore our motion back to normal while increasing strength and flexibility. For your spine, exercise helps disc nutrition and musculoskeletal health.

If you have severe back pain, try different exercises for spine pain management.

These include aerobic exercises (running, cardio machines), swimming, and yoga.

You can also use resistance bands to increase flexibility and strength in your back muscles.

Exercise doesn’t require an expensive gym membership. There are plenty of back exercises and stretches you can do at home.

2. Massage

A massage is rubbing and kneading on your ligaments, joints, and muscles. Certain massage techniques are used primarily for relaxation, but there are massage techniques perfect for spine pain management.

Spinal pain is very complex and requires special techniques to relieve the pain and improve your spine. These techniques require a massage therapist with a specialty in treating back and spinal pain.

Keep in mind, this isn’t a pleasurable experience — these types of massages can be painful because they’re working with damaged muscles and ligaments.

To truly receive the benefits of massage therapy, multiple sessions are often required.

3. Meditation

Are you stressed out? Stress is a leading factor of pain — specifically, back pain.

This helps pain feel worse, but also makes you notice pain more. Meditation is an effective stress management tool. You’ll learn multiple relaxation techniques that improve your back pain.

When you feel pain, your nerve cells communicate with your brain cells. Your brain processes the information given by the nerves, which causes you to feel pain.

But meditation helps soothe these brain patterns so you don’t feel pain as intensely.

In short, your brain is the source of feeling pain. When you relax your brain, you relax your body.

4. Hot and Cold Packs

You probably see hot and cold packs advertised. These products actually have legitimacy, and the secret comes from temperature.

Both heat and cold therapy have pain management benefits, but for different purposes.

Heat is better for reoccurring and constant pain. Warmth relaxes the muscles, joints, ligaments, and tendons.

Cold is better for swelling and inflammation. The cold helps narrow blood vessels, which decreases blood flow to the source of pain.

For long-term back problems, apply a heat patch or take regular hot baths. But if you sustain a recent back injury, use an ice pack. You can also wrap up ice cubes, frozen vegetables, or use a cold cloth.

5. Electrotherapy

Have you tried the previous methods with no luck? You may think surgery is your only option.

But before going under the knife, try electrotherapy. Electrotherapy helps stimulate the nerves. When low-voltage electrical currents meet with your nerves, they help reduce back pain.

Electrotherapy also helps improve circulation, repair tissues, strengthen muscles, and repair your bones. This is why electrotherapy patients experience most benefits if they suffer from severe back pain or back and spinal injuries.

There are positives and negatives to electrotherapy. Research and weigh out your options before going through with this method.

6. Pain Medication

If you see a doctor for spine pain management, they will often suggest some sort of pain medication.

They may suggest an over-the-counter pain management medication, such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen. If your pain is severe or your pain is related to a post-op procedure, they can recommend prescription painkillers.

Specific medications may be prescribed, such as muscle relaxers and prescriptions specific to neuropathic pain. You may also be prescribed antidepressants to handle your brain’s pain processing.

If you’re wary about taking prescription pharmaceuticals, you have other options.

Natural painkillers, such as CBD, also help target pain and inflammation associated with spinal pain.

7. Injections

There are multiple different injections one can use to alleviate back pain.

These are administered by a health professional for spine pain management. Popular options include steroids and anesthesia that’s injected into the muscles surrounding your spine.

These injections may also be used to discover the source of pain. For example, certain injections, such as Epidural, treated nerve damages such as a pinched nerve.

Using these type of injections helps health professionals uncover the root of your pain.

8. Surgery

If all else fails, surgery is always an option. If you qualify for spinal surgery, there are many different procedure options. But there are two common procedures: lumbar decompression and lumbar fusion.

Lumbar decompression relieves spinal pain by targeting your nerves. The surgeon removed a small portion of your bone from the nerve. This relieves any nerve pressure.

You’ll usually receive this treatment if you have a lumbar herniated disc or lumbar spinal stenosis.

You’ll receive lumbar fusion if your pain is in the lower part of your spine. This procedure uses a bone graft to stop any motion occurring at a painful vertebral segment.

Lumbar fusion is recommended for patients with severe diseases, such as lumbar degenerative disc disease.

Time to Seek Spine Pain Management

Spinal pain is always difficult. Sometimes, your back aches as you age.

But other times, spinal pain is an indication of something more serious. When you start experiencing back pain, you need to find ways to repair your back or else your condition will worsen.

Fortunately, there are always ways you can keep your spinal pain under control.

Try these pain relief tips and get your life back to normal.

Do you have spinal pain and think you need surgery? Schedule a consultation.