Back pain is an extremely common injury that affects millions of people in the world.
The rate of acute back pain is very high. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, around 80% of the general population experience back pain at some point.
By far, people aged between 30 to 50 are the most susceptible to develop back pain. Unfortunately, the complexity of structures found in the back makes the diagnosis a bit challenging due to the various potential causes.
While most people go through an episode of back pain occasionally, chronic back pain is more serious and defined as a discomfort sensation that lasts for more than 3 months.
In this article, we will share with you some tips to alleviate back pain at home, then switch gears to discuss the role of dry needling.
How to relieve back pain at home
Here are some tips to alleviate back pain at home:
Practice mindfulness
Practicing yoga and meditation boosts the release of endorphins in the central nervous system.
These chemicals have analgesic properties that improve chronic pain, stress, and anxiety.
Exercise
While many people still believe that you need to avoid physical activity when you are dealing with back pain, recent evidence suggests otherwise. However, this does not mean you should lift weights when your back is hurting; it just means that you should shorten your immobility duration.
Moving your body allows for a speedy recovery, especially when you target the correct muscle groups.
For instance, the abdominal muscles significantly reduce the tension applied to your back. For this reason, focusing on these muscles during workouts should be a priority to reduce the frequency and intensity of back injuries.
Get better sleep
Researchers repeatedly confirmed the health benefits of sleeping adequately. It improves hormonal balance, relieves pain, and restores depleted energy.
Overall, healthy sleep can dramatically accelerate the healing process after injuring your back.
Besides the tips listed above, dry needling seems to be particularly effective in addressing back pain.
Here is what we know so far:
Dry needling
Dry needling (DN) is a special treatment that belongs to alternative medicine. The procedure involves the use of filiform needles (commonly used in acupuncture) to deactivate myofascial trigger points. These points are hyperirritable, discrete, focal spots located on your muscles.
In general, there three types of trigger points – active, latent, and satellite. These types describe the relationship between applied pressure and the resulted pain.
For instance, active trigger points elicit pain without any applied pressure. This is also referred to as spontaneous pain. Latent trigger points, on the other hand, present with pain with applied pressure.
Finally, satellite trigger points occur in the specific area of referred pain that radiates from active trigger points.
The effectiveness of dry needling in producing a positive result for back pain is dependent on the twitch response, which is a transient contraction or dimpling of the muscles due to external pressure. The sudden change of pressure on the trigger point by needle penetration produces this response, and it can be a sign that your back pain will subside.
Mechanism of Action
While we have a slight understanding of how dry needling works, researchers are still unclear about the exact underlying mechanism of this technique.
According to current theories, dry needling promotes an opioid-mediated pain suppression that blocks the release of noxious chemicals.
Furthermore, the levels of substance P and calcitonin gene-related peptide drop, which are two chemicals trigger pain.
In summary, dry needling seems to have physical and biochemical effects on the brain and affected muscles, which explains its analgesic properties.
Side effects of dry needling
Similar to other therapies, dry needling may cause some mild side effects, which are mainly present around the side of injection.
Some of these side effects include:
• Bruising
• Bleeding
• Temporary soreness
In rare cases, nonsterile needles are utilized, which increases your risk of infections and diseases. Make sure that your practitioner is using sterile needles.
Takeaway message
Back pain is an extremely common condition that affects millions of people across the world. The good news is that we can do a lot to address this issue, especially using alternative therapies, such as dry needling.
We hope that this article managed to answer some of the questions you had; however, if you have any concerns about dry needling and back pain, please do not hesitate to reach out to us by clicking on this link.