Back pain affects almost everyone at some point in their life. It can be a small discomfort, an inconvenience that limits your activities, or one of the most crippling pains you’ll ever experience. No matter which category you fall into, you shouldn’t just have to ignore your back pain, as acupuncture can help.
A bit about back pain
Back pain is one of the leading reasons people seek out medical care. Most of these cases are due to poor posture, prolonged sitting, or a sudden injury like a fall, sports injury, or car accident. These injuries damage muscles, ligaments, tendons, and discs that support the spine.
The result can be chronic aches and pains that hinder everyday life and keep you from doing the things you enjoy. Even sleeping comfortably can become a challenge. Most people turn to prescription and over-the-counter painkillers—non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), opioids, acetaminophen (Tylenol), ibuprofen (Advil), and muscle relaxants (Robaxacet)—to manage their symptoms. However, these drugs have health risks like stomach ulcers, constipation, nausea, addiction, liver or kidney damage, increased risk for heart attack, and drowsiness. Further complicating things is trying to mix medications without compounding the risk of even more side effects.
If you think you are better to just suffer through your back pain, think again. Chronic back pain can actually shrink your brain by as much as 11%, aging you 10 to 20 years and making it harder to make decisions, remember anything, and make social connections.
Acupuncture to treat back pain
Acupuncture is useful for treating many different types of back pain, including chronic low back pain, acute back injury, muscle tension, sciatica, and sacroiliac joint dysfunction. It is a safe and effective treatment option for back pain that does not involve any medications. That means that you can get acupuncture treatment even if you are taking medications, so you can address the root causes of your back pain while still getting immediate relief for the acute symptoms.
Acupuncture stimulates the central nervous system, prompting the brain to release chemicals into the muscles, spinal cord, and brain. These chemicals either change the experience of pain or release other chemicals that promote healing. When treating back pain, these chemicals are responsible for producing a response in the nervous system that leads to a reduction in inflammation and increased blood flow to the area being treated. It works by boosting your body’s natural healing processes and releasing endorphins (your body’s “feel-good” chemicals).
There are multiple studies that have found acupuncture to be effective for those suffering from chronic lower back pain, including this one that had both acupuncture-treated and sham (pretend) acupuncture subjects with follow up six weeks later. It found acupuncture brought long-term pain relief.
Even more, acupuncture gets an “A” grade from the American Academy of Family Physicians as a first-line treatment for low back pain. That’s because they looked at a 2012 meta-analysis of data pooled from 29 studies that included 17,922 patients. In that, they compared acupuncture with sham acupuncture or no treatment to address chronic low back pain. They note that acupuncture was shown to be effective and “extremely safe.”
Back pain can be debilitating and difficult to treat, so it’s great that there are alternative therapies like acupuncture that can provide relief from this common ailment! If you are one of the many people who have tried every kind of treatment under the sun, from drugs to surgery, yet nothing has worked for you, acupuncture might be worth considering. Even better, don’t wait until you get to that point. If you have back pain or simply want to keep your back healthy, book yourself in for some acupuncture treatment.
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