It takes WORK to get rid of back pain.

I have read many times that around 80% of all adults will suffer from back pain during their lives. From personal experience, it can happen to anybody. One Saturday while getting out of bed, it felt like my spinal column shifted back-words in relation to my pelvis about three inches.
This was followed by the worse back spasms I could imagine. Whatever direction my back moved caused so much pain I could barely breathe.

I wasn't sure what to do next. I tried stretching, it didn't help. I tried ice, heat, lying down, pain killers, nothing was working.

How did I get rid of this back pain? ELECTRICAL STIMULATION, MAGNESIUM, MASSAGE and EXERCISE

Electrical Stimulation:
I looked up Chiropractors in the yellow pages. Dr. Richard Novak's ad stood out. I called his office. He talked to me for a few minutes, mentioned magnesium and recommended I see him. I made the appointment and saw him that day. After a brief exam, he recommended electrical stimulation. We gave it a try and the muscles did feel better. A few days later, a second round of stimulation was given and the muscles were almost completely relaxed.

Magnesium:
From my A & P classes in college I remember studying how different minerals either excited or relaxed muscles. Magnesium happens to relax muscles. Too much exercise can deplete your system of magnesium. I had been doing too a lot of bike riding during the weeks leading up to all this. Why not give it a try?

Massage:
It is amazing what you can find out by using the Internet.

The best thing to relieve these muscle spasms was massage using a baseball. I stood against a wall, placed the baseball between the wall and my back and rolled the ball up and down any sore spots that I could find. Therapist call this working on a trigger point. It is amazing how quickly those back muscles began to relax. I would repeat this many times per day until there was no sign of any back pain.

Exercise:
I had read a study the Penn State had done about pain. They wanted to know if strength or endurance in back muscles was more important to prevent back pain. This study determined that endurance was more important.

How can the endurance be increased?

The following is part of this article.
http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/368/

A Very Effective Spinal Straightening/Stabilization Technique

As part of the daily stretching/strengthening routine, the following technique should be considered as part of any normal stretching or posture—improving and strengthening routine.

Since a lot of people feel that at times their back is up against the wall, this movement is named the "Up Against the Wall" SSST or Spinal/Straightening/Stabilization Technique.

Step 1 — Back up into a wall or doorway so that the heels, buttocks, low middle back to C7/T12 (most upper back) and back of head (held level) make contact with surface

Step 2 — Breathe in as you squeeze your contact points of heels, spine and back of head against the wall, Once you have mastered this, slowly raise the arms out laterally while pushing the back of the hands/elbows/triceps to a 90° position at the shoulder and elbow (as if in a "hold up" with a gun to your belly).

Step 3 — Exhale, then inhale again, push your body contact points back (heels, buttocks, mid upper back, scapulae/rear deltoids, head, elbows, back of wrists, triceps) l and then raise your arms overhead further to the point where you can touch the thumb tips directly distal to your head in an arm extended position (as if extending in a water-dive). Hold this position for at least 10 seconds (build up to at least 60 seconds) and inhale and exhale from the diaphragm.

This is not as easy as it looks and you will discover that in fact not only will you feel straighter and taller as a result of performing this "up against the wall" exercise but you will be warmed up for any type of spinal extension to follow.

This exercise will improve your awareness on your posture more than you can imagine. It will teach you how proper posture should feel.

Increasing awareness of posture, massage, magnesium and increasing the endurance of my back muscles has kept me from having a repeat of this back pain.

Give it a try.