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What Do You Do To Relieve Lower Back Pain?
Jester writes: "I'm sure there's a whole bunch of you people out there who have lower back pains from hours of hunching over a keyboard and coding away. How bad is it? Have you been to a chiropractor? Physical therapist? Taking obscene amounts of painkillers? Acupuncture? Or have you become accustomed to the pain?"
I've actually never owned a car; my bike is my only set of wheels (I can drive, but my license expired 6 years ago). While I still get the occational lower back pain (and definity upper: bike riding doesn't exercise every muscle in your body), it's nowhere near as bad as when I was catching the bus to work (7km with 140m hills gets tiring, but I'm no longer in Wellington, so that's impoved*:) and I had almost constant back aches.
As others have said: exercise, exersise, sexercise (hey, can you think of a more fun way to exercise?:)
* I now ride 6km though snow :)
Bill - aka taniwha
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Bill - aka taniwha
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Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
I used to have chronic lower back pain, which came in cycles. I'd be fine for a month, then suddenly it would strike and get progressively worse until by the third day I couldn't stand up straight.
About the same time this was becoming unacceptable, I also decided I was getting too flabby, couldn't dance long enough without getting winded, etc. So I started going to the gym. After several months, I've gotten a pretty good routine: 40 minutes of Precor elliptical cross-trainer, followed by a "total-body" weight workout of 3 sets of 15 reps at low weight on 8 machines, followed by about 100 crunches.
Since the first month of this workout, I haven't had any back problems at all. And I feel better, look better, and can dance longer. Must be working...
Hi!
You sould all try swimming! It ends the pain! At least it works for me..
Pecus
A couple of quick, easy steps:
1. Lose weight. That sysadmin/coder's gut is pulling your back the wrong way.
2. Excercise. Flab doesn't hold your back together the way toned muscle does.
3. Posture. Sit and stand so that you don't stress your back. Get a good chair and lose that gut!
If you're interested in attacking the cause of the problem rather than just the symptoms, you might want to investigate Alexander Technique .
:-) But with patience and the help of a skilled teacher, progress can be made.
;-)
The basic idea behind the technique is that we build up bad habits of usage in our bodies, and that they are what lead to these problems - so if we can correct these usage patterns then we can prevent problems rather than just treat them. Unfortunately it's hard to correct our habits, because they're, er, habitual.
Painkillers, massage, chiropracters, etc. are all well and good, but ultimately you're only treating the symptons. This is true even of massage - sure, you might get rid of the tension that's causing the back pain, but if it's you that's putting that tension there, you're going to put it back there and start the cycle again. Alexander Technique is about breaking the cycle.
My experience: I'm a programmer, and I've sufferred from both back pain and wrist pain increasingly over the last couple of years which is why I went looking for a solution. I've been a student of the technique for about six months now, and it's definitely helping me. It's put me in touch with my body in that I can now recognise when and where I'm holding excess tension, and it's also teaching me how to go about correcting it properly. (Half of the problem is that we have a "deranged" sense of what our own bodies are doing, so very often the right thing to do feels wrong, and the thing that feels right is actually wrong!).
These days my back and wrists simply don't hurt me as much as they used to. That's not the end of the story though, because it's a holistic process. For example, I also discovered that when I'm driving, I clench my jaw, ramming my tongue up behind my teeth. There's no good reason for doing that, so I'm learning to stop. It's a long process, but it's definitely working - and helping.
The only problem with the technique is that it's pretty expensive (mainly because it's taught one-to-one) - but I consider it to be an investment in my future health, and hey, as a programmer I can afford it.
If you're really serious about sorting out your back pain or RSI, I heartily encourage you to give it a shot.
Best of luck,
-Andy
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http://www.gimbo.org.uk/
Get all the excersize you can.
You can laugh without eating a sandwhich, but you can do both if bring one.
Legal advice from Slashdot? Folly at best.
Medical advice from Slashdot? Dangerous.
Despite this, I'll dispense some wisdom anyways ... I have a herniated disc and am quite familiar with back pain ... If your experiencing back pain you *MUST GO TO THE DOCTOR.* It could be something serious. Go to the doctor right now, when your back and hes confirmed you don't have a serious condition, continue reading :) So heres what I've learned about backs :
You *MUST* excercise every day [Alot of slashdoters have told you this already but its worth repeating]. Excercise is crucial when you sit for 8 - 12 hours a day. Excercise dosen't have to be at a gym either -- go walk a couple miles per day.
If you have a disc problem *don't lift ANYTHING*. When you feel you can lift again, you must lift correctly (with the legs -- I'm sure you can find a website on proper lifting technique).
Your back is WEAKEST when your spine isn't straight, IE when your leaning. Never lift anything when your leaning, and try not to lean!
Lastly, its difficult to excercise your back muscles but you must do this. Theres two things you must do -- take a cylinder like a pipe or (my favorite) a wooden clothes hanging bar form your closet. Take this bar -- rest it on your shoulders behind your head, and bring your arms up and around it. Use the bar to strech by twisting left and right and up and down and every way inbetween -- its a very gentle excercise and it will help. Second of all, you must excercise your abs! Your abs support your back! Be carefull though -- alot of ab excercises are dangerous for people with back injuries. Just try situps :)
Lastly, PLEASE go to the doctor. Instead of that next GEForce card or effects processor -- or whatever your into, invest in your health. I injured my back when I was 17 with a herniated disk. I resisted going to the doctor but eventually had to when I would wake up most mornings *not being able to walk or stand.* Believe me you don't want that.
Best of luck, OD
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Add/Remove Software->Unistall Windows 9X/NT/2000
Select "Yes," and then 10 subsequent "Are you really, really sure that you want to uninstall Windows?" dialogue boxes
Presto! No more lower back pain.
Glad to have been of help.
My sister is a hand surgeon in Berkeley; she fixes lots of .com'ers with RST, CTS, etc. She claims that the injuries resultant from too much computer time are almost entirely preventable with the correct equipment.
Specific recommendations:
Chair:
The Zack Back chair, avaliable from www.zackback.com. It is one of the only chairs that offers _NO_ lumbar support, which apparently pushes your spine in exactly the wrong direction.
Keyboard:
A split keyboard, so your hands point straight forward, with no radial/ulnar deviation of your wrists, and are spaced as close to shoulder width as possible. I use a GoldTouch keyboard, which has two halves connected by a ball joint. Used as designed, it can tilt and swivel in all sorts of ways that will make my sister rich, but with minor surgery (remove the ball joint), it turns into a nice two-part keyboard with about 6" of slack in the wire that connects the halves.
Monitor:
Position your monitor correctly: When sitting up straight in your chair, with your head not tilted up or down, your eyes should be looking about 2/3 of the way up your screen. The cheapest, and most readily availble adjustment device for your monitor is printer paper. Place reams and partial reams under your monitor base to get it to the right height. Also - 2 monitors may be cool for getting 6 emacs buffers full of code showing at the same time, but it's hell on your neck. Unless you're willing to swivel your entire chair each time you switch your focus from one to the other (rather than swinging your head from side-to-side), get rid of the second monitor, place one where it's centered in your work area, and get used to having the computer switching contexts for you.
Mouse
Get a low-profile track ball (I use a Kensington Orbit), so you can manipulate the cursor with your fingers, and not your whole arm. If you're right-handed, consider switching your mouse to the left side to reduce the workload for your busiest hand. It takes a few days to get used to, but it's worth it.
Final disclaimer:
Neither me nor my sister have any interest in ZackBack, GoldTouch, or Kensington (or Hamerhill, Weyerhauser, or any other paper company, either.)
Ghengis
But worry not, according to Behind The Music, 9 times out of 10 this crippling addiction starts right before the rock star in question becomes blindingly famous.
So, good luck.
And Happy Memorial Day
The common kind of back pain is not directly related to "hunching over a keyboard and coding away". It is caused by pushing yourself too much, and being disconnected from other parts of your life.
Back pain is associated with weak abdominal muscles. If you strengthen your abdominal muscles, the most common kind of back pain will go away.
Bush's education improvements were