Posture & Back Pain

Back pain has a way of robbing your happiness.

It can limit your ability to work and provide for your family. And it can make it harder to do the things you used to love, like exercising or playing with your kids.

It is quite bleak. But there is hope for you, even if your pain is stubborn. There are plenty of natural techniques for treating back pain that are actually effective.

Essential oils can do a world of good for back pain sufferers. Many different essential oils help address the most common symptoms people experience. These essential oils are therefore a great tool to have in your toolkit in the fight against back pain.

Here are five reasons why you should think about using essential oils to manage your back pain.

1. Conventional Treatments Have Mixed Results (At Best)

Back surgery and prescription drugs often leave people in even worse shape than they started.

Depending on the type of surgery, the success rates for back surgery are underwhelming. While some estimates say that up to 70-90% of patients experience less pain within a year of surgery, many have observed something different. A lot of patients have gone under the knife only to find things worse than before. Orthopedic surgeons have seen this so commonly that they even have a term for it: Failed Back Surgery Syndrome.

Prescription pain medications come with a price tag, too, and it's not just financial. If non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) fail to provide relief, the next step is often opioid medications. Given the massive uptick in opioid deaths and hospitalizations, you are right to be cautious about prescription drugs.

Natural treatments like essential oils don't get much attention from doctors, but they are potent and have far less risk of giving you side effects… or making your back pain issue even worse.

2. Essential Oils Are Strong Anti-Inflammatory Agents

Whether you're dealing with chronic low back pain, upper-back pain, sciatica, or just general aches and stiffness, anti-inflammatories help. Most of us think of Tylenol or Ibuprofen first, but essential oils can also do the job.

A lot of the most common essential oils can help reduce inflammation:

• Lavender oil
• Ginger root oil
• Eucalyptus oil
• Peppermint oil
• Marjoram oil
• Helichrysum oil
• Rosemary oil

And the list goes on and on.

Reducing inflammation will decrease pain and is critical if you want to make a full recovery.

3. Essential Oils Help You Relax

Chronic back pain can make us anxious and depressed and lead to insomnia. All of which only makes the problem worse, of course.

In addition to reducing inflammation, essential oils can ease feelings of tension, anxiety, and depression that are so problematic for back pain sufferers.

Although essential oils aren't clinically proven to treat anxiety and depression, there is a lot of evidence that the right oils can help. Here's a list of 18 essential oils for anxiety and oils for depression to get you started.

Reducing mental tension will help you sleep better, too – another major problem for those of us with back pain.

4. Essential Oils Help With Muscle Spasms

Muscle spasms often go hand-in-hand with chronic back pain. Spasms can be acute, painful and can seemingly come out of nowhere. Other times they are chronic and longer lasting. In either case, essential oils can help.

Peppermint oil is one of the best for muscle spasms. Not only does it have an anti-spasmodic effect, but it also helps relieve pain and reduce inflammation. Other good options for treating muscle spasms are sandalwood oil, helichrysum oil and cypress oil.

5. Essential Oils Are Easy To Use

You can reap the benefits of essential oils in a number of ways. For back pain you might wish to apply them directly to your skin with self-massage. Or, you can inhale an essential oil preparation with a nebulizing diffuser. Perhaps the easiest way to administer them is to put them in the bath, where you both smell and absorb them topically.

Risks of Using Essential Oils

Compared to surgery or drugs, essential oils are relatively low-risk. However, some people have bad reactions to certain oils, and so you should be careful if you're starting an essential oil regimen for treating back pain.

If you are applying them to your skin, always dilute them with a carrier oil. And don't use an excessive amount, especially if you're using a new oil for the first time.

A fascinating study was just conducted on walking and risk for back pain.

Researchers in South Korea collected survey data from tens of thousands of people. This offered insights into lifestyle behaviors such as how often they walk, and for how long.

Dr. Gary Rothbard writing for Clinical Pain Advisor wrote the following about the study:

Although evidence suggests that physical activity may be beneficial in individuals with low back pain, the association between walking duration and low back pain has not been examined. In this cross-sectional study, data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys V and VI collected between 2010 and 2015 were analyzed. A total of 48,482 people were asked to complete questionnaires regarding low back pain, daily walking activity (ie, walking >30 min/day and >1 hour/day; walking frequency <3, 3 to 4, and ≥5 days per week), and comorbidities (0, 1, or ≥2).

…

A negative association was established between walking >1 hour at a time for ≥5 days/week and having low back pain in the unadjusted (OR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.57-0.68; P <.001) and fully adjusted (OR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.69-0.85; P <.001) models. In all instances, P-values were <.001, with the risk for having low back pain linearly decreasing as walking frequency and duration increased.

Full article here.

The article goes on to point out that this is a cross-sectional study, so they were not able to determine whether more walking was the cause of lower risk of back pain. But the results are nonetheless in line with what health professionals have known anecdotally for a long time: regular, gentle activity is a good way to prevent certain forms of chronic back pain.

From the actual study (published in Spine Journal):

Our study showed that longer walking duration was associated with a lower risk of LBP using a cross-sectional health survey in the Korean general population. Regular walking with a longer duration for more than 3 days/week is significantly associated with a lower risk of LBP in the general population aged over 50 years.

Access the full study here.

The results are promising, as they point the way toward simple solutions to preventing back pain. But a word of caution: you should always consult with a doctor before beginning any new exercise regimen.

Doing too much activity too quickly – even just walking – can end up causing back pain. And with walking in particular it's important to be mindful of your footwear. From OrthoFeet:

When you walk, you put the force of as much as five times your body weight on each foot. If the foot doesn't absorb that shock or redistribute it properly, you can develop problems elsewhere. Often this occurs in people who have ” flat feet,” because the arch appears to be flattened and closer to the ground.

Full article published here.

Your best bet is to consult with an orthopedist or physical therapist. You might want to invest in custom orthotics, which are going to be superior to anything you buy over the counter.

But if that's not feasible, we recommend at least taking the time to do your research and find a good shoe for your body. Running stores often have employees who are knowledgeable and might even help analyze your gait.