Hey guys, what’s up? It’s Stephen Dunn with CORE Therapy and Pilates.
Last night my back started hurting me. This is only the second time in my entire life that I’ve had back pain. It happened about a year and a half ago. And this time it happened again. Last time it happened with moving. That was during the summer, I was moving a dishwasher from a storage unit for hours and moving things. I didn’t feel it at the time but felt that later that night.
Last night, I was done working. I worked a couple hours yesterday, pretty slow day, not a big day. I went home and was sitting on the floor leaning against the couch. And I was sitting leaning in a way that really aggravated my back and I was only sitting in that position for about 20 minutes. But when I got up, I basically had a hard time getting up and I was kind of stuck. I started having some back pain on my left side.
I started having some symptoms into my left calf. So at that point I’m like Okay, I’m thinking this is a disc because it’s sending symptoms down into my leg. So one of the first things people do when they’re hurt is they stay still there, they lay down, they’re inactive.
When I laid down on my back it hurt like crazy. When I walked, moved and stood and did things other than laying and resting, I felt much better. And so I started doing some homework last night, I did all the release work that I teach my clients to do. I did some extension exercises to help things and I felt better after. This morning I woke up, I had trouble sleeping, I couldn’t lay on my back very well. And it’s ideal to lay on your stomach in that acute time of a disc injury but I couldn’t lay on my stomach in the bed because of how soft the bed was.
So it didn’t work in that position. So I stayed on my side, had trouble sleeping. I woke up this morning in pain but I decided to go ahead and go for a walk.
Okay, so the first thing I did when I woke up is I went for a walk for 30 minutes. I brought the dogs and after a 30-minute walk, my back felt really good. And so I went from having severe pain last night, doing my homework, trouble sleeping. And the first thing I would have expected to do today or a lot of people would have done today is they were to cancel their workday and they would lay around and just kind of rested. Well, I decided to go for a walk, I felt better than I’d felt in that time. I came in saw two clients, felt really good seeing those two clients. And then I laid down on my back for an hour on a heating pad, we have this biomat here, this infrared heating pad.
The heat felt great but being on my back for that amount of time, I could barely get up off the table. So one of the most common things people do when they’re having back pain is to rest and be inactive. And I think that is the exact opposite of what you should do.
Go for a walk, do some gentle stretches. After that walk I felt so much better. So I just want to share that I’ve now had a session with our therapist Andy that works with me.
And I’ve also started taking some of the CBD oil last night because that was my regimen last time. So I just wanted to share that about back pain and kind of the sequence in that most people will think to rest and be inactive and take medicine. And I did the exact opposite.
I started being active instead of inactive, and that walking was something that was very, very helpful. I just want to share that with you all today. And when you’re having back pain and one of the most important things you can do is take action fast, but don’t take that rest.
That’s my advice and my tips for the day.
If you have any comments, comment below, I’d be happy to answer them in another video.
Thanks, guys. Y’all have a fantastic day and a great weekend.
Call/text 512.902.8794 if you are experiencing back pain and you want relief!
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