back pain - Ask Dr. P - The Pain Doc

Back Pain or Arthritis? Try Curcumin and Boswellia Extract

by Pain Doc | Feb 27, 2011 | Uncategorized

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Curcumin is the yellow spice derived from the plant Curcuma longa, commonly called turmeric. Extensive research over the last 50 years indicates that curcumin can both prevent and treat cancer and inhibit inflammation. The anti-cancer potential of curcumin stems from its ability to suppress proliferation of a wide variety of tumor cells and down-regulate or inhibit various enzymes and biochemical pathways involved in cancerous activity and tumor growth.

Curcumin has been described as a potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent. Pharmacologically, curcumin has been found to be safe. Human clinical trials indicated no dose-limiting toxicity when administered at doses up to 10 g/day. All of these studies suggest that curcumin has enormous potential in the prevention and therapy of cancer.

Boswellia frereana (known as Frankincense) comes from a tree native to Somalia. Clinical studies have shown its benefits for both osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis. Its anti-inflammatory properties have also been shown to make frankincense a safe and effective treatment for asthma, inflammatory bowel diseases, such as colitis, Crohn’s disease and ileitis.

A 2010 study on boswellia’s potential to reduce cartilage degeneration showed that it inhibited the breakdown of the collagenous matrix; reduced potency of various metalloproteinases, which are enzymes that break down protein molecules; and significantly reduced the production of inflammatory agents like prostaglandins and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2). Epi-lupeol was identified as the principal constituent of B. frereana.

This was the first report on the observed anti-inflammatory properties of Boswellia frereana in an in vitro model of cartilage degradation. The researchers demonstrated that B. frereana prevents collagen degradation and inhibits the production of pro-inflammatory mediators and MMPs and therefore should be examined further as a potential therapeutic agent for treating inflammatory symptoms associated with arthritis.

So if you are experiencing chronic, inflammatory pain, it wouldn’t hurt to try increasing your intake of these two herbs.

Recommended Back Exercises

by Pain Doc | Jan 18, 2011 | Low Back Pain

I am a firm believer that strengthening and conditioning the core, back and leg muscles is the best way to guard against getting back pain.

If you’re prone to having your back “go out”, then these exercises are the best way to guard against recurrence. Don’t wait until you get degenerative disc disease, because once you reach this point the chances of living a pain- free life take a big nosedive. The reason is that the best exercises for strengthening your back are more risky for those with disc degeneration.

What typically happens is the disc degeneration patient will naturally stay cautious or apprehensive and will avoid back exercises for fear of re-injuring his back. This eventually leads to back muscle weakness and loss of muscle coordination–precursors for back injury and chronic pain.

So, if you don’t have back pain or degenerative joint disease (weak, thinning and/or herniated discs with accompanying bone spurs and cartilage degeneration) consider yourself lucky. Make sure your exercise regimen involves engaging the primary muscles of the trunk primarily, and the whole body, secondarily.

Do functional exercises which force the muscle groups to work synergistically rather independently. Such exercises can mimic common body movements; for example, carrying something on your shoulder while walking.

In strengthening the back, I like to do squats using a 20 lb bar on my back with feet apart in different distances.

Throwing a 12 lb. medicine ball using your whole upper body is another great functional exercise. Get a partner and have him stand 10 feet to your right. Throw the ball to your partner while using your core as well as arms. This simple exercise will strengthen your abs, your paraspinals, arms, and even your leg muscles.

Next, use a Freemotion or similar cable-weight machine where you can raise an arm above your head. With both hands, grip the cable handle and swing it down towards your feet, as though you were chopping wood with an axe. Boy, this is a great exercise as you will feel just about every muscle in your back, arms and chest work together to move the weight.

Delayed Back Strain

by Pain Doc | Aug 24, 2010 | Low Back Pain, Myofascial Pain

Updated 3/29/2021

If you ever went to bed feeling fine but woke up with muscular back pain, it could be a number of things.

1. Your mattress : Cheap spring mattresses deform at the level of the body’s center of gravity when lying down, which is at the pelvis (buttocks/hip level). Remove your sheets and take a look at your mattress: is there a slight depression in the center? If so, when you lie on your side, your pelvis sinks and forces your lumbar spine to arc downwards, compressing the joints and discs on the opposite side.

If you sleep on your stomach it puts your lumbar spine into hyper-extension (arcs sharply) forcing the facet (rear) joints of your lumbar spine together. It also forces you to twist your neck, which rotates all the vertebrae all the way down your spine.

Sleeping on your back is the best position because it allows your spine to be in the most neutral position. But if your mattress is old and has that pit in the middle, that can be enough to put a prolonged stretch on your back muscles as your pelvis sinks downward. This can make your back feel sore in the morning.

Solution: Get a new mattress. I recommend the TempurPedic viscoelastic mattresses, which resist deformation (always spring back) and last a long time. Basically, the mattress material pushes proportionally to the weight placed on it (more under the pelvis and upper back; less on the waist and lower legs) and rebounds so that it can do this every time.

If TempurPedic isn’t your thing (some users report feeling too hot in the summer on these mattresses), a high-quality spring mattress should work.

2. You may have strained your fascia while exercising or engaging in other intense physical activity that required heavy use of the back muscles, such as rock climbing. The fascia is the sheath that encases a muscle, protecting it as it lengthens and shortens inside the body, rubbing against adjacent muscles. It may take longer for fascial strains to be noticeable as they don’t release as much inflammation as a strained muscle. So, if you wake up and you have a very focal, sore spot on one of your back muscles that gets progressively worse, chances are you have a myofascial strain. You probably incurred it the previous day doing a back exercise or other type of heavy exertion.

Solution: Like all types of strains, fascia strains eventually resolve on their own, but it could be a couple of days and sometimes weeks of discomfort and problems with back mobility. If you wish to eliminate your back pain sooner than later, consider getting a Pulsed EMF coil.

Pulsed EMF, PEMF for short, is the external application of a body-compatible electromagnetic field that energizes injured/ sick cells and one of the few medical devices cleared for home use that I highly recommend. The magnetic field helps with molecular transport in and out of cells, which enables them to carry out their biological functions more efficiently; including healing, repair and protein synthesis.

Pulsed EMF has a number of reported health benefits such as pain reduction, faster fracture/injury healing, and better sleep. Whole body PEMF devices are not cheap, but are a sound investment in your health.

More information on how Pulsed EMF can help you >>

3. Your potassium levels are low. Hypokalemia, or low potassium can occur if your diet is deficient in potassium, and/or you engaged in strenuous activity such as hard labor, a long hike or a long run and sweated quite a bit. It is known to result in severe muscle spasms, sometimes involving one, particular muscle. Potassium in ionic form (K+) is involved in nerve transmission and muscle contraction, so if you are low, it can cause dysfunction that manifests as a muscle contraction abnormality.

Solution: Take Potassium supplements, about 500 mg/ day for several days until your muscle pain is resolved.

Bottom line, you don’t have to noticeably injure yourself to feel muscle pain. Muscles are complex organs that can get damaged just like any other organ in your body if they are stressed in a way that interferes with their proper movement. Potassium and other ionic imbalances, specifically calcium and sodium, can cause abnormal muscle function, and are therefore another possible cause of muscle pain.