Video Transcript Below
So let's talk about a few actionable things that you can do right off the bat. A few activities that you can get started on immediately to start to help your back feel better, in anticipation of your hands-on physical therapy visit.
The first one is you still want to keep moving so, even though you may think, or you may have been told, to sit down put your feet up, lie down just take a rest and don't do anything, that's actually one of the worst things that you can do. I would encourage you to start to experiment and find what you can do and generally the first good place to go, is a walk. Get your shoes on dress comfortably, get some music if you need to, and try and get out for five to ten minutes to start with.
You can walk at whatever pace works for you and if you need to take a break, take a break. That's just fine, because movement is medicine for our body and you want to try and capitalize on the movement that you can tolerate without the sharp pain, so you're going to move within the range that your body allows you. Work with your body.
The second is going to be sitting. Sitting posture goes a long way toward actually helping to improve the support through our trunk and our spine, and also to limit, if you're having any sciatica type symptoms. To limit the sciatica from actually getting worse and shooting down your back. Deep, cushy couches or chairs, where you tend to end up slouching and creating a big C curve in your spine, that is going to worsen your symptoms.
So a couple of ways around that, if you're going to be sitting in a firm chair like at a desk or at the dinner table, places like that, you can actually scoot your bottom up right near the front of the chair, so you're sitting on your two sit bones right underneath each butt cheek, and so what that'll do is, that tends to cause you to sit up tall. Your hips, your shoulders and your ears are all in alignment. Now, if you're sitting at a computer, that's especially important. Because at a computer, what do we all tend to do? Tend to go like this. Extremely common. I find myself doing it as well.
I need to catch myself because I'll start to feel the back pain, I'll start to feel my toe tingling a little bit. So you sit up nice and tall. Make sure you have good foot placement underneath you. That way you are more likely to maintain good, appropriate posture, and the most of the discomfort you're going to feel is actually the burning of your postural muscles because they aren't used to working like that.
But it's going to be much healthier, much happier for your low back. If you're going to be sitting for an extended period of time in any type of a chair, desk chair, car or truck something that actually is going to require your back to be against the backrest. Even if you have the best lumbar support in your car, it's not quite enough. I would encourage you to get a hold of some sort of a commercial lumbar roll or you can take a towel or sheet, roll it up, put some masking tape over it and you've made yourself a lumbar support roll. Then what you're going to do is you're going to sit your bottom in to that seat all the way into the corner. That way, you and your spine are sitting right up against the backrest and then at that point, you're going to stick that lumbar support in, right around the region where your belt line is.
There's no exact place, no perfect place to put it. But I want you to experiment just a little bit find what works best for you. You're going to feel an exaggerated posture in that seat, and while it may feel a little funky, that's going to be the healthiest place for your back to be in the meantime. As you start to move and as you start to feel better.