All posts by Kathryn Merrow

Self Help, Upper Back Pain

Heat Or Ice For Upper Back Pain And Neck Pain?

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Should you use heat packs or cold packs for upper back pain?  Which helps upper back pain more?  Heat or cold?

The answer is:  It depends!

The rule of thumb is heat for muscular pain and ice or cold for nervy pain.

If your upper back pain feels more like muscle strain or muscular aches, heat is probably the way to go.  Muscles tend to respond well to heat.  You might also want to think about applying heat to your upper chest muscles to help them relax, too.

On the other hand, if you have Continue reading Heat Or Ice For Upper Back Pain And Neck Pain? →

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Lower Back Pain, Sciatica

Which Muscles In Your Lower Back Can Cause Sciatic Pain

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Are you having pain in your lower back that radiates down into your hip or leg?  It might be sciatica or pseudosciatica.

True sciatica involves pressure on the sciatic nerve as it leaves the spine.

Pseudosciatica  or ‘false sciatica’ is caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve by muscles next to your spine called QL.  Pressure can also be caused by the gluteal muscles (buttocks) as it starts the journey to your leg.

The QL or quadratus lumborum muscles are often the cause of nervy pain called sciatica that runs down your leg.  They are also the cause of  lower back aches.

Sometimes they are called the four-sided devils.  (They do have 4 sides.)

These muscles on each side of your waist are called QL’s for short.  The quadratus lumborum muscles are used for twisting and tilting.

Golfing can aggravate them as can any twisting or tilting to the side.  Twisting while Continue reading Which Muscles In Your Lower Back Can Cause Sciatic Pain →

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Natural Back Pain Relief, Self Help

Your Legs Can Cause Low Back Pain

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Do you have lower back pain?  Did you know that your legs might be causing that pain?  It’s true!

I’ll give you some background and then a quick stretching tip for getting rid of the pain in your lower back:

Here’s how your body works:

The muscles in the front of your thighs and the  insides of your thighs (where they touch each other) pull on your back because they are actually attached to your pelvis and spine.  Since they are attached to your bones,  the muscles can PULL on your pelvis and spine.

Those muscles pull on your Continue reading Your Legs Can Cause Low Back Pain →

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Causes of Back Pain, Natural Back Pain Relief

Why You Must Treat The CAUSE Of Your Back Pain

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The pain in your back is a symptom.  It means something is wrong but it’s probably not the cause of your back pain.

Here’s a good analogy about getting rid of back pain that involves unlocking the door to your home.

Treating symptoms without treating the Cause of the symptoms is like trying to unlock your door by turning the key but leaving the deadbolt locked.

It just doesn’t work.

When therapy or surgery isn’t successful it is because Continue reading Why You Must Treat The CAUSE Of Your Back Pain →

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Natural Back Pain Relief, Self Help

Does Yoga Help Get Rid Of Back Pain Naturally?

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Can yoga exercises get rid of your back pain?

Last week two different people wrote to tell me how much difference yoga made in their pain.  And did you know there are yoga classes specifically for people with back pain?

The really good thing about the practice of yoga movements is Continue reading Does Yoga Help Get Rid Of Back Pain Naturally? →

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Natural Back Pain Relief, Self Help

Inversion Tables – Does Inversion Get Rid Of Back Pain?

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Have you been wondering about using an inversion table to help get rid of back pain naturally?  Or how inversion tables work?

Here’s some helpful info:

Inversion tables DO help get rid of back pain.  They create a little more space between your spinal bones.  Stretching two or three times a day for at least a few minutes reduces the pressure of gravity.

That’s the whole thing:  Gravity.

It keeps us from floating off into space but it also squashes us down.

Gravity can cause pain unless we do things to counteract it.  Inversion is one of those things.

Some of the older style inversion tables have Continue reading Inversion Tables – Does Inversion Get Rid Of Back Pain? →

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Lower Back Pain

Does Your Mattress Cause Morning Low Back Pain?

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Do you wake up with pain and stiffness in your lower back?  I did, too.  But I was only 30 years old at the time!

I thought it was me but when I got a new mattress, like magic, I was ‘cured.’

Sometimes your mattress is too soft for you.  If it’s more like a hammock, that’s too soft and your muscles can be strained when you lay in the deep pocket.

If your mattress is too hard, it doesn’t Continue reading Does Your Mattress Cause Morning Low Back Pain? →

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Upper Back Pain

What Causes Upper Back Pain In The Morning

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You woke up with pain in your upper back.  It may feel like a knot or a muscle spasm.  You aren’t happy.

Muscle knots in upper back
You can get rid of miserable muscle ‘knots’ in your upper back naturally!

Isn’t it truly amazing that we can hurt ourselves in our sleep?  I think so.

Sometimes it’s from something you did the previous day but maybe you just slept “crooked.”

Maybe you laid too long with an arm out in front as you slept on your side and that strained the muscle.

Or perhaps you slept with your neck tilted to one side or the other and that caused an unhappy scalene muscle in your neck. If a muscle  gets unhappy it can develop trigger points.

Trigger points are hyper-irritable places in muscles that refer pain elsewhere.

Trigger points in the scalene muscle can cause a knot or muscle pain in your upper back.  In fact, they do it all the time.

Sometimes this pain in your upper back could be Continue reading What Causes Upper Back Pain In The Morning →

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Self Help, Upper Back Pain

Using A Tennis Ball To Reduce Upper Back Muscle Pain

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Muscle “knots” in your upper back can go away.  In fact, you can get rid of your upper back muscle pain naturally!

Here’s a conversation I had with a reader who woke up with muscle pain in his upper back and neck.

The morning I woke up with the pain, It was literally unbearable. It faded (Over a month) into discomfort, then almost gone (without me doing anything). The pain seemed reminiscent of a muscle tear or muscle strain. It would come back as mild discomfort if Continue reading Using A Tennis Ball To Reduce Upper Back Muscle Pain →

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Natural Back Pain Relief, Self Help

You Have A Really Strong Back That Can Heal Naturally

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You have a really, really strong back. Really, you do!

But, sometimes when something happens, like a spasm or a “catch”, you might start to think that your back is frail or fragile. You might think you have to “baby” your back.

When we start to baby our back, or move tentatively, we are setting ourselves up for injury. We start to move stiffly instead of smoothly. And, we are more likely to Continue reading You Have A Really Strong Back That Can Heal Naturally →

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