Did you know that back pain can develop into chronic back pain if it lasts for more than a period of three months? Scary right? The need is to solve and permanently cure the condition before this happens and the pain levels reach extremes. With the rapidly growing technological and medical advancements, treatment options for back pain are many, medicine accompanied, medicine free, surgical, non-surgical, traditional therapies, home remedies and more.
But today, we will have a detailed discussion about the very famous treatment option for curing lower back pain that is Electrotherapy.
What do you mean by Electrotherapy?
Electrotherapy as the name suggests is a medical therapy that actually works on the mechanism of electrical impulses to treat your back pain. Primarily the therapist will connect and attach small electrodes to your back (specifically the area in pain), now these electrodes receive electrical current from a battery powered device which acts as a supplier. All this in togetherness finally sends electrical impulses to the area of your back which is in pain providing relief and curing the back pain condition.
The devices used in the electrotherapy are many, but the one which is very famous and is considered safe by a majority of patients and medical experts is TENS – Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation.
What is TENS?
TENS, the most widely used electrotherapy treatment which comes with a unit of small devices that act as current supplier which in turn provide electrical stimulation in the form of impulses to treat your lower back pain. The TENS units target the damaged nerves that are causing your lower back to hurt hence the form of treatment is used to treat both nerve pain and chronic pain conditions with electrical impulses and has proved to be very effective in curing the back pain permanently if the therapy is performed regularly under an expert.
Let us now give you a quick tour to other forms of treatment under electrotherapy:
EMS – Electrical Muscle Stimulation
Unlike TENS, EMS works by targeting and sending electrical stimulations to the muscles under damage. When the therapy is performed, it activates and stimulates the motor (not sensory) neurons of your body, these motor neurons send signals with which your muscles undergo contraction. The therapy has proved to be efficient and effective when the cause of the back pain is identified as muscle damage.
EA – Electroacupuncture
As we already know, acupuncture is a traditional therapy treatment which has two needles acting upon different parts of the body under pain to treat the condition, EA is totally similar to the traditional acupuncture therapy except the fact that Electrotherapy has current running between these two needles which deliver electrical impulses to cure the back pain and related symptoms.
Electrotherapy (specially TENS) as a practice has been proved to be a really effective form of treatment for permanently curing the back pain conditions. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that the therapies need to be performed with quality devices and under an expert therapist.
Lifestyle Changes to Treat Back Pain
Changes in the diet
Researchers have proved that people with back pain more likely follow a diet that is short on essential nutrients which are derived from essential food items like dairy products, fruits and grains. People with high sugar intake daily are also at a higher risk of experiencing back pain
Pain is caused due to inflammatory foods which shall be excluded in order to avoid Inflammation of the back muscles are – refined sugars, red meat, dairy products, trans fats and saturated fats, vegetables like tomato and eggplant.
Food items that shall be included which help reduce inflammation and
Hence the back pain are – fiber, yogurt, black pepper and green tea.
Maintain a Healthy Body Weight
As medical researches have proved obesity leads to extra weight on the spine, hence if you lose weight and maintain a healthy body weight that would release extra pressure from the spine.
To achieve the feat – exercise daily, correct your posture, maintain a healthy diet and please stop eating that is tasty to your tongue and nasty to your body and start eating the opposite which is healthy for your gut and your back.
Conclusion
While electrotherapy being impulse stimulative in nature offers unmatched relief in the back pain and related symptoms, it may not be a permanent cure in some cases where the pain has already reached intolerable extreme levels. Electrotherapy and specially TENS has proved to be very efficient in long term pain management, but if the pain is intolerable and the therapy is not showing appreciable results for your condition in specific, waste no time in reaching out to your doctor and get started with a more organised medical treatment to permanently cure your back pain.
Read More: Postherpetic Neuralgia – Symptoms, causes and Treatment
Leave a Reply