FAQ Category: General Spine

Every lifting situation is different and requires some adjustments. Some basic guidelines to increase safety and prevent back injury include:

• Face the object straight on with your feet facing forward.


• Bring the object as close to your body as possible.


• Keep your arms as close to your body as possible.


• Don’t hold your breath. Breathe out as you lift.


• Bend your knees slightly, or use a semi-squat for heavier items.


• Don’t keep your back perfectly straight. It’s okay to bend forward or stoop a little, especially for heavier objects.

Most importantly, do not lift objects too large or too heavy for your body size. Whenever possible, ask for help.

Look for a backpack with padded shoulder straps that are adjustable. Make sure the backpack is not too big or too small. This means that when the pack is properly adjusted, the straps are not fully pulled in or let out. It also means the backpack should not sag down below the waist.

Look for a backpack that has a waist and/or chest strap to help spread out the weight. Finally, look for a pack that has separate compartments to hold things. For example, a separate, side holder for a water bottle can keep that one-pound weight from being lumped inside with all the books. Additional separate compartments can help distribute the weight in the same way.

There may be a connection between back pain in children and heavy backpacks. Researchers have shown that carrying backpacks can cause muscle fatigue over time. This may be the situation with your children.

To assess this problem, look for patterns in your family. Do your children complain more on any particular day of the week? Is the fatigue greater by the end of the week and better after the weekend?

Check the size and fit of each child’s backpack. The weight of the load should be evenly spread over the shoulders and around the waist. Make sure the backpack is carried over both shoulders at all times. Encourage children to avoid slinging the backpack over just one shoulder. Remove unnecessary items from the backpack to reduce the weight. If lightening the load does not improve the situation, have your doctor check your children for other problems.

The usual guideline for maximum backpack weight is 10 to 15 percent of the child’s body weight. This would mean eight to 12 pounds for your son. Most students actually carry closer to 20 to 25 percent of their body weight. At 30 pounds, your child is at the upper end of this amount.

Researchers are studying the question of how much backpack weight is too much. Until a clear guideline is established, common sense must prevail. Help your child check his backpack each day and keep out unnecessary items.

Check with the school for guidelines, and don’t hesitate to weigh your child’s backpack. If the backpack continues to be more than 15 percent of his weight on a daily basis, talk to school staff about the number of books your child is carrying.

Doctors and researchers are looking into this issue. A Swedish group studied adolescents between the ages of 14 and 16, looking for possible causes of low back pain. The early results showed more cases of back pain in teens who spent more time in front of the television or computer. A follow-up to that study three years later did not show the same results.

It is known that increasing age, female gender, and stress add to the risk of low back pain among teenagers. High levels of physical activity and low strength of the back muscles are also factors.

More studies are being conducted. The next five to 10 years will probably bring us closer to answering questions about back pain in young people.

 When doctors talk about back pain in adolescents, they often say, “It isn’t common, but it isn’t uncommon.” Put another way, teenagers do get back pain, but not nearly as often as adults. Girls and women seem to have more problems with low back pain than boys and men. There is a known connection between back pain and premenstrual and menstrual cycles, but just as many girls have back pain at other times of the month.

The reasons for gender differences are unclear. Differences may be due to anatomy, or the wider hip structure in girls. There may be differences because of the greater joint mobility observed in girls. Researchers are actively seeking ways to prevent low back pain in all groups.

An injury to the bones, muscles, ligaments, or other soft tissues of the body usually takes six to eight weeks to heal. Sometimes the healing process can be delayed as much as six months or more. This can happen if you use tobacco, consume more than one or two alcoholic beverages a day, develop infection at the site of injury, or have poor nutrition. The presence of other medical conditions such as diabetes can also slow the healing process. 

When pain and symptoms persist beyond the expected time for recovery, the condition is referred to as “chronic.” Usually, the condition is labeled chronic after six months without change. Chronic pain is managed with a different approach. The goal in chronic pain treatment is to improve your ability to do things and improve function. Your pain may not go away, but you will be able to do more physically and socially.

Back pain can be caused by a wide variety of factors. Too much sitting or leaning forward can certainly increase your chances for back problems. Watching your posture and taking short stretch breaks every 10 or 15 minutes may help. Try to keep your chin from sticking out like a turtle. Keep your shoulders down and back, and use a chair that puts a small arch in your low back.

You may want to consult a physical therapist. The therapist can check your posture, workstation, and the strength of your back muscles. Six weeks of specific exercises for your back combined with increased activity may be recommended.

Diseases such as cancer, ulcers, brittle bones (osteoporosis), or kidney infections can cause back pain. You should see a doctor if making some changes in your workstation and increasing your activity level do not change your back pain. If there is any blood in the urine or stool, numbness or tingling down the leg, stomach upset, or other unusual symptoms, see your doctor immediately.

The earlier, the better. Researchers think the best time to work on basic movement skills is during preschool and early elementary. At this age, kids haven’t developed bad habits. They learn more easily and are not as self-conscious about their performance. They’re also not as afraid of getting hurt or being made fun of by their peers.

Studies have shown that early mastery of movement skills may lead to healthy habits over the long run. Examples of movement skills include running, jumping, catching, throwing, and kicking. Some studies suggest that learning these skills is especially important for girls. Boys may be physically active later whether or not they learn the skills. But for girls, the skills themselves may be more essential.

This is a complex question with many possible answers. Some of the answers have to do with the physical nature of the condition or injury. But many researchers believe that “psychosocial” factors may be equally or even more important when it comes to recovering from back pain.

For example, patients’ fear of pain may affect their recovery. Patients’ response to pain ranges from confrontation to avoidance. With confrontation, patients gradually return to their regular activities after an injury. This is seen as a healthy response. At the other end of the spectrum, patients avoid activities they think will cause pain. This can lead to exaggerated notions of pain and increased disability over time.

Fear of activities that may cause pain has been linked to disability and loss of work in patients with low back pain. Fear of activities seems to play less of a role in other kinds of spinal pain, such as neck pain. Different kinds of back pain present unique issues for both treatment and recovery. These issues need to be dealt with on an individual basis to get the best results for each patient.

Research suggests that, compared to people with neck pain, people with low back pain may be more likely to avoid activities perceived to cause more pain. This difference between groups is fairly slight.

But the results of avoiding activities seem to be worse for people with low back pain. For this group, fear of activities is clearly linked to more pain and disability. This can lead to loss of work and other problems. In contrast, fear of activities isn’t necessarily related to pain and disability for people with neck pain.

People with low back pain should be careful about avoiding activities because they fear more pain. A healthier response would be to return to normal activities gradually. This will lead to a better recovery over the long run.

It might be. Some people with back pain develop a fear of activities perceived to cause more pain. This can lead to more disability over time. In the case of low back pain, research has shown that patients’ fear of activities often becomes disabling and prevents them from working. Men who are injured at work have been shown to have relatively more fear of activities than some other groups.

If your husband was injured on the job, it’s natural that he might fear work activities. This fear may spread to other areas, such as physical activities. Unfortunately, the less your husband does over time, the less likely he is to have a full recovery.

Talk with your husband and his doctor about your concerns. Working closely with a doctor or physical therapist may help your husband get back into his activities safely–and with less pain.

Chances are, you’re already doing a lot. Low back pain can be seen as an imbalance between what people can handle and what is asked of them in their daily lives. When people have more activities than they can realistically do, or when they don’t have the strength they need to do tasks, low back pain can result.

One way to keep people “in balance” is to improve their sense of what their bodies can do. Once people are in tune to signals of being overloaded–or signals that they could actually do a little more–they’re more likely to respond to the demands of their environment in safe, healthy ways.

With this in mind, your training can help “balance” clients with low back pain in a few ways. First, it improves clients’ physical capabilities. This makes them better able to meet the tasks of their daily lives. Second, by asking clients to “check in” with how their bodies are feeling, personal training makes clients more aware of the protective signals the body may be sending. This awareness may help clients avoid the overload that leads to ongoing back pain.

A group of researchers recently tested a treatment program in the Netherlands with a “whole person” approach. Physical training was merely one part of the program. Patients also learned how social and mental stress can lead to back pain. They were trained in body awareness, so they could respond better to signals that they were doing too much.

For the small group of patients tested, the program was very successful. Patients came out of the program with better physical abilities. They also had better mental health and social functioning. Most important, they improved their health, physical functioning, and ability to do daily tasks.

The authors think the program worked because it addressed the physical, social, and mental parts of back pain. Patients in the program grew more aware of their capabilities and limitations. The authors believe that this kind of program gets patients on their way to leading healthier, more balanced lives.

Getting back to your normal activities quickly is important. However, you should use pain as a gauge of what can be done safely, and how much is too much.

A group of researchers in the Netherlands suggested that not being aware of your physical capabilities and limitations may lead to low back pain. These researchers tested a program that aimed to improve the physical, mental, and social functioning of patients with low back pain. For the small group of patients tested, the treatment was very successful. Patients saw big improvements in their health and ability to do daily tasks.

The researchers didn’t think this result came from the physical training alone. More important, they felt, was the fact that the program improved patients’ awareness of their own capabilities. After the program, patients were better able to tell if they were doing too much, or if they could safely do a little more. Responding to these kinds of signals may help patients lead more balanced lives. This, in turn, may help them avoid low back pain in the future.

Unfortunately, your friend may be right. Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) was linked to back problems in a group of 7,209 white women over age 65.

In this study, women on ERT were generally healthier than those who had never used estrogen. Nevertheless, 53 percent of women on ERT reported back pain in the previous year, as opposed to 43 percent of those who had never used ERT. Twelve percent of women using ERT said their back pain made daily activities difficult. This was true for only nine percent of women who had never used estrogen.

Researchers think that estrogen may have a loosening effect on joints. Estrogen may cause more movement in the spine and less elasticity (or support) in the tissues around it. Together, these things may cause back pain in women using ERT.

Is this a reason not to take estrogen? Not necessarily. But you may want to work with your doctor or physical therapist to take special care of your back while you’re on ERT.

Because humans spend the better part of their lives asleep, a position in which the back is lined up and not stretched too far in any one direction is a healthy start. In general, choose a firm sleeping surface to prevent your spine from “sagging” due to the softness. Try using pillows to support your knees and legs when possible. For instance, use a pillow between your legs when you turn onto your side. This helps align the spine and takes pressure off the side of the hip. When lying on your back, consider putting a pillow under your knees to ease pressure on your spine. Be sure to use a pillow to support your head and neck, too.

Like a ligament, the disc helps hold the bones of the spine steady. When part of the disc is removed, it can have an effect on the stability of the spine. From this standpoint, you might be at higher risk for injury when doing hard work such as heavy lifting, twisting, or bending. Because the disc has been injured, you could also be at risk of future injury, especially if you don’t do anything to keep your back and abdominal muscles healthy and strong.

People with a history of back pain, injury, or surgery may be more likely to have future problems. This is not to say that your risk will get steadily worse over time. Keeping your back healthy with safe lifting practices, a good conditioning program, and ongoing exercise may help reduce the chances of future problems. 

Screening for low back problems is not an exact science. Since the readings vary so much, there’s no way to say for sure whether you’ll end up with problems in the future. Given the heavy work required by your business, you are certainly advised to keep up a well-rounded conditioning program. This should include a balance of strengthening exercises as well as aerobic conditioning to improve your general fitness and strength.

Osteoporosis is often a life-changing disease. Pain can eventually cause people to be less active, leading to muscle weakness and loss of independence. Weakened vertebrae can fracture from minor trauma or simply from the weight of the body on the spine. These fractures are known as compression fractures of the spine. A fracture like this can lead to chronic pain, decreased lung and intestinal function, and even depression. Proper treatment and management can help offset potential problems associated with this condition.