All posts by Kathryn Merrow

How To Get The Natural Curve In Your Spine In A Swimming Pool

You can easily start to rehabilitate your back and get rid of back pain in a swimming pool or any body of water where you can move your arms and legs.

If you have pain in your lower back it may be because you have lost the natural curve behind your waist.

Do you slouch and slump? Does the area behind your waist feel flat rather than slightly curved inward?

Water movement can help.

If your pain is in your upper back that can be for the same reason; you have lost the natural curve in your low back. That makes your head move forward and causes strain on your upper back muscles.

Water movement can help.

Water acts as resistance and also massages your muscles as you move through it. Swimming is excellent if you know how and IF it doesn’t aggravate your pain.

Any body of water is good to exercise in but a swimming pool has the advantage of edges to hold onto.

Hold onto the edge of the pool with your arms outstretched and kick your legs. That will help strengthen your legs and hips. And guess what?

Your legs are attached to your back via muscles!

When you are kicking in this position you dropping your belly and lifting your tail–you are making a forward curve behind your waist. Your muscles will start to remember where they used to be. 🙂

Every now and then reverse the curve in your lower back. Give it a break. Move into the opposite position but only to your comfort level.

The idea is to keep using ALL of the muscles in your spine in ALL directions. That’s what keeps spines flexible and back pain levels down.

If you don’t have access to water, yoga can help.

There’s a movement or posture in yoga called cat-dog or cow-camel. It has you on the floor on all fours. Drop your chin to your chest thoughtfully (always move thoughtfully) and arch your back like an angry cat.

Then lift your head, elongate the front of your neck, and let your belly drop like an old cow. You’re now flexing and extending your whole spine.

When you do that, it warms, loosens and relaxes the muscles that attach to your spine in a similar way to water movement.

Keeping or re-gaining the natural spinal curves that you had when you were a toddler and small child is KEY to natural back pain relief!

Causes of Back Pain

Does Your Mattress Cause The Knot In Your Back?

June 12 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

Your mattress definitely could be causing the knot in your back or shoulder!

Here’s how:

1. An OLD mattress could be the problem or part of the problem if it sags or has depressions. If the “holes” or depressions don’t feel comfortable to you, figure out a way to fill them.

Sometimes you can bolster up an old mattress by propping it from the bottom or padding the top. You might put a piece of plywood underneath or even move the mattress to the floor.

There are foam toppers that range from cheap to expensive. A flat one can be folded over to make twice as much padding where you sleep.

A NEW mattress could also be the problem if it doesn’t fit your body well. If it’s too firm, a foam topper will help. People with large-boned frames or wide hips need a place for the bones to go.

If your new mattress is too soft…wait, I’ve never found a new mattress that’s too soft. I guess you’d have to return or sell it.

2. Do you always sleep on your side? The SAME side? That can do it, too, because you may be smashing your shoulder, tilting your neck, shortening your chest muscles and straining the muscles in your back on that side.

3. Side sleeping also Continue reading Does Your Mattress Cause The Knot In Your Back? →

Upper Back Pain

How To Get Rid Of Upper Back Pain With Heat

June 9 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

Oh, my aching shoulders! My upper back aches! My ‘traps’ are killing me!

In a nutshell, poor posture is usually to blame for upper back pain. Here’s why:

When your heavy head hangs in front of your body and your shoulders are rolled forward it strains the muscles in your upper back. It might not matter for a few minutes but it matters when you do it for hours on end. 🙁

Correcting your posture is the best to avoid upper back pain but heat can help in the meantime.

Here’s how to use heat to help your upper back muscles feel better: Use it on your WHOLE upper body.

If you apply heat packs or a heating pad only to the strained part it will weaken it further. It may feel good temporarily but then you will notice it still hurts or even feels a little worse.

But if you direct the hot water on your whole upper body–front, sides and back–it will help relax the muscles in the front of your body, too.

And the muscles in the front of your body NEED to be relaxed! They are a big part of the problem.

You see, the muscles in the front of your body tend to get short and tight just from everyday activities. They pull us forward and that strains back muscles.

When you use heat packs on your upper chest and arms as well as your back it will help those tight muscles relax. Then your muscles will be more balanced and you will have less strain and pain in your upper back muscles. 🙂

You can learn more about the causes and natural cures for miserable upper back pain at Knots In Your Back Gone!

Self Help, Upper Back Pain

How To Get Rid Of Knots In Your Upper Back

June 7 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

Do you have nasty knots in your upper back?

Muscles are the problem. Angry muscles! Let’s see what you can do to make them happier.

First, let’s try to figure out WHY you have this knot.

Did you wake up with it or just get it today? Or has it been bugging you for a long time?

Is it on the side of your body that gets the most use? Is it on your dominant side?

It may be harder to get rid of a knot that you have had for a long time than one you just got today. That’s because now there are more muscles involved–it may not be just a simple knot anymore.

If you just got the knot today think about which muscles you were using right before the knot started to bug you. What position were you in?

Knots usually happen because (1) the muscle is being strained or over-stretched or (2) the muscle is being over-used or held in a Continue reading How To Get Rid Of Knots In Your Upper Back →

Self Help, Upper Back Pain

You Can Get Rid Of Upper Back Pain With This Simple Tool – Video

June 6 Kathryn Merrow 23 Comments

Here’s a little video that shows how to get rid of upper back pain and muscle strain using a simple tool that you might already have in your home. And if you don’t already have it, you can easily make one. Enjoy!

Shoulder Pain

Two Most Common Causes Of Frozen Shoulder

June 5 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

If it’s become hard to lift your arm you may have a “frozen shoulder.”

The muscles around the shoulder joint can go into spasm and prevent the natural movement of your arm. That’s why it’s called “frozen shoulder.”

If you didn’t hurt to lift your arm yesterday but it suddenly does today–or if you became unable to raise your arm following an injury or fall–there’s a good chance that muscles are causing the restriction in your range of motion (rather than the joint itself).

The deltoid muscle is a common culprit. It is at the top of your arm. It is the cap muscle. You can treat it by seeking tender areas of muscle and pressing, massage or pinching them.

The subscapularis is another common culprit. It can be treated by pressing into it. It is sandwiched between your ribs and your shoulder blade so the pressure has to go between the back ribs and the shoulder blade. It’s usually accessed near the armpit.

The subscap (for short) is not easy to press into yourself but you can still do some self-help like this:

Get down on all fours and pretend you are a lion and lift and roll your shoulder blades as you ‘walk’ like a lion. Doing this will help stretch the subscap. Roll those shoulder blades!

When I fell backward years ago (before I got into this field and know what I know now) I woke the next morning and was unable to lift my arm.

I went to physical therapy for Continue reading Two Most Common Causes Of Frozen Shoulder →

Causes of Back Pain, Self Help

Do Flip Flops Cause Back Pain?

June 3 Kathryn Merrow 2 Comments

Summer’s here. Are you wearing your flip flops? Are you having back pain? I’m betting yes because you are here reading this article. 🙂

If you are young, healthy, active and fit with great muscle tone your flip flops might not be causing back pain yet. The problem is that we are not all fit or active with great muscle tone.

If you don’t have beautiful natural arches in your feet (if you have flat feet) that by itself will create back pain. Having no arches in your feet causes you to lose the natural curve behind your waist and in your neck.

Here’s why:

Your feet are the support structure for your whole body. They need arches to do their job correctly. Your feet are your foundation.

Wearing flip flops with no built-in arch support to support your flat feet allows you to stay in poor collapsed posture. They weaken your foundation.

But a shoe with a good arch support built in that fits your foot will help you stand up. It will help you get or keep the natural curves in your back that you used to have. Those natural curves will help you avoid back pain.

A good sturdy arch support that fits in your shoes will Continue reading Do Flip Flops Cause Back Pain? →

Lower Back Pain, Sciatica

Poor Posture Is A Common Cause Of Lower Back Pain

May 29 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

Are you suspicious that your poor posture or slouching might be causing your lower back pain?

You may be right!

Your spine is supposed to be shaped like this skeleton on the left.

Do you see the nice curves?

That’s how your spine is supposed to look.

But if you sit on your tailbone–if you are a ‘sacrum sitter’–instead of sitting flat on your ‘sit bones’, then you are almost guaranteed to have low back pain. Probably upper back, neck or head pain, too.

Now look at the skeleton below.

She has lost the curve in the lower back. This person is quite likely a sacrum sitter–she slouches and slumps instead of sitting on the sit bones.

When you were a little child you could get away with variations of posture. That’s because children use all of their muscles all of the time. Their muscles are balanced. 🙂

But when we grow up most people only use some of their muscles, some of the time. You got out of muscular balance. 🙁

But that’s okay because bodies heal all the time. Bodies are capable of changing.

Do you have to take action? You surely do; there is no way around it.

But you can do it! There is a lot of good information here at Simple Back Pain Relief to help you learn how to correct your posture and stop Continue reading Poor Posture Is A Common Cause Of Lower Back Pain →

Causes of Back Pain, Neck Pain, Upper Back Muscle Knots, Upper Back Pain

Why Do You Have Muscle Knots In Your Back?

May 28 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

I received the cutest email today from a man who has knots in his back. He said he loves to slouch but when he does he gets pain in his upper back and in his head.

He loves to slouch.

He gets pain when he slouches.

His question was whether therapy would help him get rid of the pain.

But he said he knows it comes from slouching and he just loves slouching on the couch so much!

Well, I told him that he already knows the answer. In fact, he did a really good job of diagnosing where the pain comes from.

I also said that if the therapist helps him get a strong back and relax the muscles in the front of his body and neck it would help a lot. Mostly, it will help keep him out of slouching positions.

And since his body will be more balanced, if he does still slouch once in a while, it won’t be so likely to cause the pain in his jaw and the knots in his back.

That’s the type of self-help information you can get for your own “muscle knots” in your upper back if you go to –> Knots In Your Back Gone! (I made it easy just for you.)

Slouching and slumping can definitely cause muscle knots in your back!

Your new goal is to correct your posture to avoid back pain naturally. 🙂

Upper Back Muscle Knots, Upper Back Pain

What Are Knots In Your Back?

May 27 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

Are you wondering what’s inside the muscle knots in your back? Basically, the same stuff that’s outside the knots. Muscles, tissue, that sort of thing.

Yes, there are some chemical reactions that take place in muscles when they get unhappy but my job is to help you without getting technical. So I will. 🙂

Try this:

Squeeze your fist really tightly. It’s not very comfortable but if you hold it for a few minutes you will be able to tell that the muscles in your lower arm are also getting tight. Depending on the position of your arm, you might even feel the muscle tension in your upper arm.

Muscle knots are like that closed fist. They are in Continue reading What Are Knots In Your Back? →

SIMPLE BACK PAIN RELIEF