Chronic pain anywhere in your body can bring your normal daily life to an abrupt halt. However, when that pain is located in your back, you face particular challenges in simple tasks like getting out of bed or even walking across the floor.
Rather than seek relief through prescription or over-the-counter medications, you can get longer-lasting relief by seeking professional medical treatment for your back pain. Pain management doctors commonly treat patients like you who live with chronic back pain and want to get back to your normal routine faster.
Therapeutic Relief
Chronic cases of back pain can sometimes arise through a lack of exercise. People who are inactive and live sedentary lives are more prone to developing debilitating pain in their lower and middle backs.
To find relief, these patients need to become more active. Their pain management doctors can recommend exercises that can work out the pain and stiffness in their backs and ease the pressure on nerves and discs. Their doctors can also provide therapeutic relief through massages, disc manipulation, and stretching to ease intense cases of pain.
Surgery
Extreme cases of back pain may need to be addressed with surgery. However, back surgery today is less invasive and painful than it was a decade or more ago. Many cases of surgery can be performed with lasers.
This surgery can be effective in treating bulging discs in the spinal cord and bone spurs in the spine. It can also relieve pressure on nerves. Your pain management doctors will determine if you are a candidate for laser back surgery and if operating is the only way to relieve your severe back pain.
Physical Therapy
Your physician may also recommend that you take part in physical therapy to help relieve your intense pain. Physical therapy can entail low impact exercises like aqua therapy that cushions your joints and bones. It lets you build resistance in your back and work out pain and stiffness without exposing you to even more discomfort.
Your physical therapy may also include working with a rehab specialist to stretch and improve flexibility in your back. You may undergo several weeks or months of this therapy before you find effective relief from pain.
You do not have to relegate yourself to taking pain medications to treat chronic back pain. You can learn what your options are by consulting with pain management doctors, like Southwest Florida Neurosurgical & Rehab Associates.
