Spine Wellness

With spring time around the corner, now is the time many of us are brushing up on our golf game – getting ready for the season. But did you know that golfing, although a low-level physical activity does provide a potential risk for injury? 

One common injury that golfers suffer is lower back pain. This lower back pain is attributed to poor swinging technique and poor conditioning. An article in Spine Universe, “Don’t Let Back Pain Handicap Your Golf Game”, states that eight times your body weight is forced through your spine as you make contact with the ball. 

This spine wellness tip, will provide helpful information for golfers. To help prevent golf injuries, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recommends that before you tee off - that you first do some stretching exercises. Also take the time to hit a few balls on the driving range, before you start your game. For more exercise tips, to help avoid lower back pain, and golfer’s elblow, click here. 

Exercise is not only good for loosing weight or for your cardiovascular health.  Exercise is also important for your spine health! It is important to strengthen and condition your spine. By building a strong spine, it will help you to avoid back pain and back injuries.  Exercise also helps to build bone mass to help prevent osteoporosis later in life. It is never too early to begin. 

For spine wellness tips and a  few bone-building guidelines to exercising to help reduce your risk of osteoporosis, this link provides tips prepared by Spine Universe

It has been estimated that an individual will spend approximately 25 to 33% of their life sleeping! Yet wellness is always focused on the awake hours; exercise, diet, life-style tips, etc. This spine wellness tip will provide a few ideas for maintaining a healthy spine while sleeping – helping to avoid back pain!

• Select a good mattress and pillow! The key is one that is comfortable where you get “restorative” sleep – which is a period of time of uninterrupted sleep! 
• Maintain proper support of your head and spine while sleeping. Your neck should maintain its natural alignment when you are sleeping. 
• Ideally, if you can sleep on your back or side – this provides the most spine support.

Most of us are now counting the days to warmer weather!  Until then, it is important to be prepared for those cold wintry days!  Remember if it snows – to view snow shoveling as exercise!  It is important to shovel snow correctly to avoid back pain and back injuries.  For spine wellness tips for snow shoveling, click here. 

A popular New Year’s resolution is to lose weight! While you are trying to lose weight, it is important not to have bone loss. Studies have shown that individuals that are on a diet may also have a decrease in bone mineral density, but individuals who took calcium supplements were able to reduce bone loss.

As with any exercise program or diet, talk to you physician first. For more information about protecting your spine while losing weight – click to our spine wellness fact sheet.

When you think of decorating your house for the upcoming holidays – it is common to think about the comedy Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase.  In this movie – the more lights and decoration the better – and falling off of the roof is entertaining.  In real life, falling off the roof is no laughing matter.

As you plan to decorate your house for this holiday season, don’t forget to follow a few ladder safety tips to help prevent falls, back injuries or worse.  This spine wellness blog entry will provide a few ladder safety tips, as provided by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.  

¨   Use a ladder that is the proper length for the job; this is a minimum of three feet past the work area.

¨   Do not stand on the top three rungs of the ladder.

¨   Use the locks on ladder extensions, and make sure that they are properly engaged.

¨   Do not place your ladder in front of a door that may be opened.  Block or lock the door. 

¨   Keep your body centered between the rails of the ladder at all times. 

For a complete safety list, click here

Unfortunately pregnancy and back pain sometimes go hand-in-hand. 
For recommendations and tips to help eliminate or minimize back pain during pregnancy, click here for a spine wellness fact sheet. 

A recent spine wellness blog entry provided helpful tips for avoiding back injuries when raking your leaves.  Now that leaf raking is probably on everyone’s to do list – here are a few reminders to avoid back injuries and back pain. 

Remember to view raking as exercise; and warm up before you start. Avoid twisting and overreaching – Step side to side using your legs to move and not just your arms.  Additionally, try to  keep your back upright.
Switch sides – To avoid an overuse injury; use both arms when raking.  Try to switch sides every 10 minutes or so.

Once your leaves are bagged; you need to remember to avoid back injuries while lifting!  Use proper lifting techniques, squat down and do not bend over.  Do not lift with your back.  Do not overfill the bags so that they are too heavy.  And if you need to move the bags far, use a wheelbarrow. 

For more infomration, link to the spine wellness fact sheet.   

Spine Wellness Tip:  If you stand or sit for long periods of time, it is good to periodically take a break. Take a break and stretch your legs and back.  This stretching will help you from tightening up or injuring your spine / back.

Sometimes it feels like we are always carrying things; groceries, kids, laundry – the list is endless.  As you do these everyday chores, it is important to protect your spine, to avoid back injuries and/or back pain.  This spine wellness blog entry will provide a few tips for proper carrying. 

• Think close!  Hold the object(s) close to your body.
• Think balance!  If objects are heavier – try to disperse the weight evenly.  For  example, if carrying grocery sacks – try to create equal weight with the sacks, and split them up them equally for each hand.  If one object, frequently switch sides. 
• Think light!  For purses, backpacks and luggage – try to lighten your load.

And always, if an object(s) are too heavy to carry ask for help!

 If you do not carry your wallet in a purse – most likely you carry it in your back pocket.  And for men, this is common place.  But did you know that your wallet can cause lower back pain?  There is even a syndrome for this called “hip pocket syndrome.” 

This spine wellness blog entry, will provide a few tips for carrying your wallet and avoiding lower back pain.

• Thin it out!  Ideally, make your wallet as thin as possible, only carrying necessary items.
• Remove it!  If you are going to be sitting for long periods of time; i.e. at work sitting at your desk, or in a car – remove your wallet from your back pocket. 

One activity usually done by all, and quite frequently, is talking on the telephone.  Technology has allowed us to talk on the telephone, whenever and wherever!  But did you know that holding the telephone improperly can lead to neck pain and/or strain? 

This spine wellness blog entry will provide tips for talking on the telephone.

• Avoid cradling the phone between your neck and shoulders.
• If multi-tasking while talking on the telephone, use a telephone speaker or headset.
• Maintain a neutral head and neck position when talking on the telephone. 

We have all heard that having a healthy lifestyle is good for our cardiovascular health – but did you know it is also good for your spine health?  At the recent medical education conference/ symposium Back Talk sponsored by Indiana Spine Group, Alta Skelton, RN, MSN, NP-C, discussed key factors for helping patients keep their spine healthy.

A few of the key things discussed were:

• Smoking – An earlier spine wellenss blog entry discussed smoking and the spine.  One of the key effects that smoking has on the spine is that it  speeds up disc degeneration.

• Nutrition – Proper nutrition helps maintain strong bones and connective tissue.  Additionally, nutrients are important for tissue repair.

• Obesity – Being overweight puts increased pressure / load on the spine. 

• Exercise – Aerobic activities help to increase not only the heart rate but also the blood flow.  This increased blood flow, can increase the   nutrients being diffused into the disc. 

When you think of proper posture – you may envision movies where the star is learning how to properly walk with a book resting on her head.  Although not entirely accurate, it does hold some merit. 

In this spine wellness blog entry on proper posture – we will focus on standing.  The goal of proper posture is to maintain the normal, or “neutral” position of your spine.  In doing this, hold your head up straight with your chin in.  Your feet should be shoulder-width apart and the pressure should be on the balls of your feet not your heels.  Hold your shoulders back, stand up straight - keeping your knees straight but not locked.  Additionally, hold in your stomach.

In Spine Universe, they describe a “wall test” to help you see how your posture is.  To test your posture and see how your back / spine is aligned - stand against a wall.  Lean your head, shoulders and back against the wall. Then put the heels of your feet forward about 5 to 6 inches.  Then hold in your stomach (lower abdomen), to decrease the arch in the lower back.  And finally, push away from the wall – and then try to maintain this position. 

For more tips on maintaining proper posture to help eliminate spine or back pain, go to www.spineuniverse.com – and for topic search enter “proper posture”.

If you think back – at sometime in your childhood you probably remember your mom telling you to stand up straight or not to slouch.  In this case, mom did know best. 

Proper posture does not only look good – but it does provide many health benefits.  If your posture is correct, then the muscles, joints, bones and organs are where they are supposed to be. 

At the Back Talk medical education symposium in August, Alta Skelton, RN, MSN, NP-C, discussed The Healthy Spine.  In her talk, she identified the following benefits of proper posture* for spine wellness.  They are:

• Keeps the bones and joints in correct alignment.
• Helps decrease the abnormal wearing of joint surfaces.
• Decreases the stress on ligaments holding the spine together.
• Prevents the spine from becoming fixed in abnormal conditions.
• Prevents fatigue.
• Prevents muscular pain and back pain.

*Source:  Cleveland Clinic

With the temperatures still skyrocketing, it is hard to believe that fall is around the corner.  But if the calendar is correct, soon it will be time to rake leaves! As you get ready to rake leaves – there are a few simple safety tips to help you avoid back injuries and back pain:

• Consider leave raking exercise – stretch before you rake.
• Avoid twisting and keep your back mainly upright.
• To avoid overreaching and twisting – step side to side – using your legs to move rather than your arms.
• To reduce stress on one side of the body -  switch hands throughout the job, and keep your elbows bent.
• And don’t forget to take breaks as needed.  This includes stretching and briefly bending backward to reduce back pressure.

At a recent continuing medical education program one of the speakers Dr. James Anderson discussed the assessment of low-back pain.  Dr. Anderson is a family practice physician in Greenfield.

During his presentation, Dr. Anderson highlighted a few spine wellness / patient education sites.  These sites provide spine eucation information as well as other health information on other topics.  These sites are  http://orthoinfo.aaos.org, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/, and www.uptodate.com/patients.  A few books that he recommended include:  Kortz, JN, Parkinson, G. Heal Your Aching Back.  McGraw Hill, New York, 2007 and Dumhi, HA.  All You Need to Know About Your Back Pain.  Arthritis Foundation, Atlanta, 2002.

Additionally,this link on Indiana Spine Groups web site provides a listing of other useful spine related web sites.   

With summer days quickly passing by, and school around the corner, it is time for back to school shopping.  And most likely on your list is a backpack.  Today, backpacks make a fashion statement.  The colors and style are endless.  But as you choose your backpack, shop with care.  Certain styles of backpacks are more prone to causing back problems and back pain.

To learn more about selecting a back pain, and tips for using a backpack, click here to read out spine wellness backpack sheet.

With travel on the rise during summer months, either by plane or car, remember to take care of your back for those long trips.  A prior blog entry provided some spine wellness tips.  But a reminder, when packing don’t forget a travel pillow.  These are good to support your lower back or neck when sitting.  And if you are flying try to get up, stretch and walk - once every hour if possible, or if you are driving stop and take a short break.