Healthy Spines Through Smart Sleeping

Spinal health is critical to general physical wellbeing. Like a mast on a ship, the spinal column directs and controls movement. Its stability is vital, and its maintenance is a constant task that needs to be consciously addressed each day. One need not scan medical journals for studies and statistics on the back, the importance of a high-performing spine is known, the task now is to ensure its health. Many individuals do not have the time or energy to be working on their spine during the course of the day, this is just as well, your best chance at improving spine and back health is to learn to sleep the spine-healthy way.

Well known advice from best spine surgeon in Chennai suggests that humans should give themselves six to eight hours of sleep per night. There is a school of thought that says that one may catch up on their slumber at a later time and make up for sleep deficits incurred during a night of sleeplessness. To be clear: be it from work or play, slumber lost is not slumber that can be "made-up."

Though it is possible to account for small deficits by sleeping more on successive nights, there is not a zero-point, or equilibrium that you will return to if you lose rest one night; if you give yourself four hours of rest on one night, sleeping 12 hours the next night will not restore your sleep health. You will feel more normal and more rested, but not because you have satisfied your slumber credits or improved spinal health. That being said, it is admittedly very difficult to stay on a perfect schedule for your whole life, it is, perhaps, even undesirably inflexible to do so. The key then, is to make the most of your slumber through spine-strengthening, smart sleeping. 

There are three ways to do this:

1. Stretch before going to bed: 

To prevent tossing and turning, stretch your lower back and your hamstrings (which are, by way of the hip-bone, connected to your waist-bone and spine.) Two excellent and easy stretches can be performed in just half a minute each. For the first, stand straight and extend your arms straight over your head, clasp your fingers and pull through your shoulders and upper back. For the second lie face up on the ground and bring your legs towards your chest by pulling with both arms on the underside of your thighs. After completing 30 seconds of each stretch, get into bed and sleep easy knowing that you've improved the constitution of your spinal column.

2. Try a new sleep posture: 

Physiologists advise that one of the best sleep postures is the underused "fetal position." Common to babies, this position calls for the sleeper to form their body as if he was an infant or fetus and hold a pillow between their knees to relieve knee-to-knee pressure. Another option is to sleep face up with a pillow or towel placed below your ankles. Both are acceptable and equally efficient.

3. Give yourself the chance to succeed: 

Unfortunately, we only have so many hours in a day available for slumber and spinal health. Do not squander your hours. Smoking, drinking coffee or beer, and strenuous exercise, will all stimulate your body and hurt your chances of getting spine-healthy slumber if you partake in them less than an hour and a half before your planned sleeping time. If you must drink coffee or beer, smoke, or exercise, do so at an appropriate hour.

Those hours you have scavenged from work and play are precious, do not waste them by going to bed with a tight back and a tired spine, in a poor posture, or stimulated by poor scheduling. If you stretch, try a better sleeping position, and abstain from activities that energize, you should notice improvements in the quality of your sleep and the sturdiness of your spine.

Back Pain: Take Seriously To Avoid Suffering

Back Pain is essentially a universal malady as it occurs with a variety of ailments that range from osteoarthritis to disc prolapse to heart failure. Though it is one of the more common ailments its severity is very difficult to assess and in most cases, facial expressions, extent of interference on daily life, and the recounting of the sufferer give an indication as to the severity of the pain. 

Every one of us has suffered from pain in the back at some time or other and according to statistics Back related Pain affects 80% of the population at some point in time and in lieu of the figures the NHS spends more than 480 million pounds in the treatment of back pain.

A disease or disorder in any of the structures of the back including, inter-vertebral discs, vertebrae, joints and ligaments, and the muscles and nerves controlling them, is the prime reason for pain. 

The two most frequently occurring types back pain are:

1. Acute back pain:

This type of pain has a rapid onset and in some cases is caused by a protrusion of intervertebral disc. The people who are usually affected by this are middle-aged or young adults as a result of their daily activities like boarding the bus etc. The treatment includes analgesics, rest, and physiotherapy.

2. Chronic back pain: 

It is an ailment that is amongst the most common and is a result of diverse causes which makes its description a complex affair. Chronic pain at the back is usually caused by strain on ligaments owing to Osteoarthritis, muscular fatigue among other reasons. The paucity of variety in the symptoms, few physicals signs, equal radiological findings, and negligible pathological information leads to a very empirical treatment of the pain.

The diagnosis of any disorder is a prerequisite for its proper treatment and more so with back pain which does not have any articulate symptoms. A full history of the pain is essential in its treatment starting right from the first occasion when the pain was felt. 

Details of other illnesses and an inquiry into the environmental conditions and family history are also a necessity for diagnosing the reasons and the treatment to be offered for the pain. A careful physical examination has to be undertaken to further assess the reasons behind the pain and the severity of the pain. 

The patient is examined in various positions like sitting, standing, supine, lying prone, and lying on the side. Pathological investigations like urine and blood tests, X-ray etc also conducted to help the neurosurgeon in Chennai prescribe apt medication to alleviated pain.

Treatment for back pain includes physiotherapy, operation; moreover some plain and simple rest can go a long way in the treatment of back pain. The aim of all these approaches is plain and simple: rid the patient of the pain in the back.

How a Qualified Physician Can Diagnose Back Pain in Minutes?

Getting an accurate back pain diagnosis can greatly improve your lifestyle and help you move on to treatment of back pain. When your back pain has exceeded three months, it is termed chronic, and this means that it is not responding to basic treatments such as rest, anti-inflammatory medications and heat and there must be a problem that needs addressing. The positive message about the term "chronic" is that it has a possible cure. Conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and MS are not termed chronic, but can only be managed, but not cured.

See a Physician for Back Pain Diagnosis

A qualified neurosurgeon in chennai can order tests to help in a back pain diagnosis that will show with a visual such as an x-ray, CT scan or MRI what the problem may be. In addition, he or she will listen to your symptoms and prescribe treatments, exercises and medications to reduce your pain. Several organizations will offer homeopathic and holistic relief, yet without the proper diagnosis, the root cause may not be addressed. A clinical diagnosis looks at the skeletal system and all of the biological factors involved ruling out any other factors that may be contributing to the pain, including heart disease, osteoporosis and even an infection. Blood and urine tests may be ordered if the patient has a fever or other symptoms that indicate something more than skeletal or muscular. Your range of motion in the back and nerve sensitivity will be tested as well. This complete physical exam will likely reveal what is causing the pain.

Possible Back Pain Diagnoses

Muscle strain of the back is the most common pain diagnosis, and can be caused by overuse or sudden twisting brought about in athletic activity or in a fall. And when abdominal muscles are weak, they do not support the back, and injury is possible. Often, the pain can be related to the spine itself and the discs between the vertebrae. Several medical terminologies describe a problem in the back disc - the cushion between the vertebrae of the back. A ruptured disc, slipped disc, bulging disc, herniated disc, disc tear, collapsed disc, disc protrusion and black disc all describe basically the same thing - when damage to a disc presses it onto a nerve and therefore causes pain. Muscle weakness can also cause pain when a nerve is pinched. Disc degeneration, however, is when the disc itself deteriorates and is the source of pain.

Spinal compression fractures caused by osteoporosis are a common problem found in the elderly. When bones of an individual over the age of 60 are brittle, a slight miss-step, a fall or even coughing or sneezing can bring on the fractures. The tiny fractures may eventually accumulate and cause a vertebra to collapse, eventually causing pain. Other pain diagnoses exist, but the above are the most common.

The back is a complex human mechanism that helps us to stand, sit, walk and run. Each back pain diagnoses has a solution, and by describing the symptoms to your doctor, having a thorough physical and undergoing diagnostic tests, you are on your way to being pain-free.