Nov 14, 2007 12:19 pm US/Eastern
Back Pain Recovery Without The Surgery
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
For Chris Roberts, it happened at work. "I bent over at the waist, and the back went out, right there."
For Mario Lagasi, it literally happened by accident. "I got rear ended in a car accident, and a couple of days later I went to get ice out of the refrigerator, and it felt like somebody stabbed me in the back."
Neither one wanted surgery or drugs to kill the pain.
Lagasi said, "When you got to take drugs for pain, it's not good. It's no way to live a life on drugs."
Their stories may sound familiar. Studies show at least 80% of Americans will suffer from significant low back pain at some point in their life.
Dr. Kalman Blumberg is an orthopedic surgeon at the
South Florida Spine Clinic.
He claims that probably ninety-five percent of those patients who visit his offices get better without an operation.
"Low back pain is a leading cause of disability in America," said Dr. Blumberg. "But by using special exercises to strengthen core muscles and improve flexibility of the spine, most back pain patients will never need to see the operating room."
He says the first step to building a better back is a stretch, like the "cat" stretch. "A lot of patients have stiffness in the back and the stretching helps to relieve that," he added.
There's also special isometric and core exercises like the "swiss ball bridge", or the "wall slide", and the "quadraped" that build the tiny stabilizing muscles of the spine.
According to Dr. Blumberg, "Doing the core strengthening exercises puts the back muscles in shape so that you can do all of these other activities that you want to do without fatiguing those muscles."
Tony Milian at the fitness center at Memorial Hospital West also warns patients about rotation.
He said, "The lower back was not meant for rotation, and a lot of people do rotational activities with their lower back, not knowing that they need to do it with their pelvis."
There are other problems, like knee injuries, that often lead to back pain.
Milian said, "A lot of times we want to look at the whole body and make sure that we address the cause of the back pain and not just the symptom."
If done right, being out of pain isn't out of reach.
"It can be prevented by simple exercises of your back before it even starts," Lagasi added. For Roberts, it's possible to build an even better back.
There are other exercises one can do at home by clicking onto some of the
Websites in this story.
The phone number for the South Florida Spine Clinic is (
954) 771-2551.
The Fitness Center at Memorial Hospital West can be reached at: (954) 433-7125
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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