UNDERSTANDING BACK TROUBLE: PREVENTING A RECURRENCE-WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOURSELF

It is important to identify positively the things that do not make matters worse, and to concentrate on them as a basis for an improvement of life. Assuming you can find some activity-such as short walks or swimming or even walking in a heated pool, or simple exercises which do not upset your back – do it regularly, a bit more and a bit faster or farther every day. Almost any exercise (not jogging!) will do to start with, as the basis for improvement, and help you to become generally more physically fit.

People who are physically fit are generally able to tolerate pain better than the unfit. Their sensation of pain may be no different but it affects them less and they are better able to ignore it

Some of the things you can do which should make your life easier include:

• keep a check on your weight; extra pounds mean extra stress on the spine

• eat a healthy balanced diet

• learn to relax

• learn to live according to a routine, and plan ahead, so that you never need to rush

• give careful consideration to the movements or actions which aggravate your symptoms and

try to avoid them

• when you have a ‘good’ day, do not try to catch up on all the neglected things: having further weeks of misery because you rushed to do too much on the ‘good’ day is not worth it. Increased mental stress will lower your pain-threshold

• make sure that you have a suitable chair and bed – ask advice from the physiotherapist, occupational therapist or osteopath before buying new furniture

• keep active. Rest is appropriate for acute back pain; chronic back pain tends to benefit from the right kind of exercise, preferably of the most enjoyable type and as strenuous as you can manage

• change patterns and positions as needed to ensure that your sex life can continue on as regular a basis as possible. Prolonged back pain can have a devastating effect on sexual activity. Back pain can also be used (often unconsciously) as an excuse for not engaging in sexual activity. The situation deserves understanding and sympathetic analysis from both partners. Postures can be experimented with. For example, experimenting which partner is on top; side to side positions; one partner sitting on a chair, the other astride.

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