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Did you know that 50-80% of the adult population will experience back pain at some point in their life? In fact, 40% of people will have back pain this year alone. So if you've had your first back pain scare, maybe a little tingling down your leg, don't freak out! You are not destined for a life of disability.
Some people can identify the exact reason for why their pain began, and others say it started out of no where. It is very difficulty to know exactly what initiated our pain, there are too many factors, what matters is that it is here and it needs to be managed. Many patients, family and friends falsely believe that back pain cannot be cured without surgery. They refuse to give a committed effort in physical therapy and instead have doomed themselves to a life of pain or surgery...don't do this! There are several reasons why most people shift in to this mind set. These include the fear of wasting time and money, social pressures from friends and family who tell them there is nothing they can do or that physical therapy never helped them, or the fact that participating in therapy takes effort on their part compared to surgery where you just have to sign up and cross your fingers.
There are some forms of back injury which absolutely require surgery which we will not discuss in this post. A good neurologist or spinal surgeon can answer this question best, but the overwhelming majority of people do not need to go through with it. In fact, up to 74.6 percent of low back spine surgeries fail to completely relieve pain, according to a 2016 review published in the Journal of Pain Research.
Just like everything else in life, those who have access to the correct information, are those who succeed. How many times in your life have you realized 1 year, 5 years or 20 years later that there was a totally different method of doing something which was incredibly more effective, which you never knew about (this summarizes my entire history of investing money). The patients who know which practitioners to call or which management techniques to use, are the ones still working, golfing and planning vacations that involve a ton of walking.
I have seen countless patients get pain relief and move on with their life when they thought they were doomed. They are stunned when they get relief, but only because they weren't in the in on the truth about back pain.. The most effective treatments which we utilize at Skyline Physical Therapy in Wyckoff, NJ utilize are the McKenzie Method and the Mulligan Concept. Look them up and if you have any questions, you can call us and we'd be glad to answer them for you.
So let's bring this conversations full circle. Back pain is so common that we can call it normal, surgery is rarely the best option, and you need stop making excuses. Do your research and take action. You are the only one who can be accountable for your own livelihood.
As you pursue your journey to Back Pain Relief, try starting with this FREE guide:
If you have further questions regarding this blog post, or other tips that can help you to relieve Back Pain, Contact Us at Skyline Physical Therapy!