Low Back Pain Relief

If you are looking for low back pain relief I will start by saying I understand how aggravated you probably are. Many of my friends and patients I have worked with, who have low back pain after a car accident, tell me they have pain whether they are sitting or standing, and often while lying down. It's a "can't win for losing" kind of injury.

Injured In An Accident?

FREE Evaluation of your claim...

I think it's important to understand what muscles you likely injured in the car accident, and the mechanism of your injury, but first I want to help you with practical solutions for your low back pain relief. I have created the page over here to explain in more detail the muscles you injured, so head over here to get more information on your lower back injury.

I am going to start this section with tips for home pain relief, followed by my road map to treatments for your low back pain.

Low Back Pain Relief at Home

• Start with lying flat down on a firm surface, (not the couch, not a soft bed). Put a pillow under your knees and a rolled up towel under your neck. Just rest here. This position will support your lower back and allow it to release some of the tension and pain.

• ICE - no one's favorite treatment. Use Ice if you have sharp, intense type of pain. I know ice can be unpleasant...here is the trick to using ice: What I do is put a warm damp towel against my skin and the ice over that (your skin feels the warmth, the ice penetrates right through that). The fact is, ice is a very fast pain reliever. Sit against the ice with a cushion or pillow helping to hold the ice in place. You want mostly flat or crushed ice, a simple trick: find a large plastic bag, place ice in it and smash your ice with a heavy frying pan.
• Heat -Use heat when your pain is dull or achy - heat is fabulous for loosening your muscles and can bring pain relief and help reduce your fatigue. DO NOT use heat if you have sharp or intense pain.

Sleeping Positions For Low Back Pain Relief

• Side Lying: When you are in bed place a medium sized pillow between your legs while lying on your side. The pillow will help support your upper leg, taking pressure off your lower back,and can really help you get some sleep.
• Lying On Your Back: use a small pillow under your knees, and a small neck pillow for your neck.
• Stomach sleepers, try this: place a flat, small, not poofy pillow under your pelvis before falling asleep, this will give your lower back support and can help you get through the night. No pillow for your neck.

Go Directly to Your Doctor

If you are experiencing any of the following, you need to see your chiropractor or regular doctor immediately:

Numbness or tingling in either leg

Difficultly with bladder control

Extreme pain

Massage Therapy for Lower Back Pain Relief

Who hasn't reached up at the end of a long day and massaged that tired place right above your belt? Massaging sore muscles is a natural way to relieve pain and we do it for ourselves naturally all the time.

After a car accident massage therapy is one of the fastest ways to get rid of the pain. Its fast. It feels wonderful immediately. And it works short term and long term. You might think of massage first as a relaxation or spa event. The idea that massage has a treatment element to it, may be a new idea to you.

It may seem strange or even scary to imagine lying down on a table and having a therapist work on your muscles. If you have no experience with massage, please check out this page about what to expect from a massage, it will answer most of your questions and should help you feel a little more comfortable before scheduling your first appointment.

Massage therapy is a proven, centuries old treatment which is used by athletes, Olympians, and injured patients worldwide. No gimics, no gizmos, just hands on treatment for low back pain relief, and it works!

The technical: massage therapy reduces inflammation, which causes pain. Massage helps your muscles begin healing and helps them to move more freely, less stiffly. And massage reduces scar tissue which can cause restrictions and pain.

Chiropractic for Lower Back Pain Relief

Chiropractic care after an auto accident injury is also a very fast and effective low back pain relief treatment. I know that you may be concerned, scared or unsure about how chiropractors work.

I really understand this.

And hopefully I can give you enough information on this page, just click below, so you can consider adding this valuable treatment. The results of having a chiropractor on your team for low back pain relief can be very helpful.

Explaining how Chiropractors work, and what to expect from chiropractic therapy, in plain English

Pain relief can be very fast, and just as commonly it may take you a few hours before your low back may start to feel a bit better.

Physical Therapy

Physical therapy is often one of the first treatments a medical doctor will prescribe to help you heal from your car accident. However, after 20 years of hands on experience with thousands of patients, and my own recovery from 2 accidents, I can tell you what we have discovered: our patients who began physical therapy at the beginning of their injuries took longer and had more pain than patients who treated with massage and chiropractic.

When you have just been in an accident and until about the first 3 months, and sometimes a bit longer, exercise and deep stretching movements can aggravate and inflame your muscles and ligaments, making it more difficult to find low back pain relief, creating more pain and sometimes making your treatment take longer.

Its not advisable to start this therapy while you are still in the acute phases of your injury. Often your medical doctor has been trained to believe that PT is the only treatment available after an auto accident injury. Therefore you are not given any other ideas for low back pain relief, you suffer with the pain of exercise too soon in your injury healing and you wonder why you are not getting better.

Physical therapy has benefits later in the injury cycle, at the 6 month range for most accidents that were moderate to serious. At this stage the inflammation has reduced and your lower back is moving more freely and is ready for some strengthening and deeper stretching.