Is your back pain actually from your back?

We all have back pain at some point in our lives but often it’s not from our back directly. Ruling out medical issues like bulging disks, calcifying facet joints or Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) which should be diagnosed by a Doctor there are other muscular skeletal problems that cause pain and some of them are strangely unrelated to you actal back.

Piriformis Syndrome causes many issues that people call back pain but is actually caused by the Piriformis muscle impinging on the Sciatic nerve which causes pain from your hip down your leg. A badly inflamed Piriformis muscle can drop you to your knees with pain. There are specific stretches you can do to help stretch the Piriformis muscle but sometimes you need some help. Thai massage is incredibly good for assisting a stretch of this muscle and acupressure will also lengthen it to relieve the pain.

Most men, once they age a bit, have a common problem, tight hamstrings. You can’t efficiently stretch them yourself unless it’s very minor. Most me need assisted stretching and loosening of the muscle itself. This is not always a comfortable procedure but in the end it’s well worth it. Tight hamstrings throw the body mechanics of your hip out of alignment. A good thorough stretching can bring it back into alignment and reduce not only pain but also stress on our joints.

The other muscle group that we often have problems with is the Erector Spinae group, the two long thin muscles that go up each side of your spine. Often people complain about back spasms and this group or groups it attaches to are often the cause. It’s relatively easy to massage these muscles and stretch them so they are not stressed and have less tenancy to spasm or overly contract and tighten up. 

 Your back has a huge number of muscles working in tandem to keep you erect, let you bend and help you rotate. One muscle out of sync with the others can cause major problems.

One thing we’d like to say in closing, if you have joint pain – knee, hip, back or foot – reducing your weight by just one pound will take off the equivalent of 4 pounds of force on your joints.