Dr. Stefano Sinicropi, M.D.

Nobody wants to be slowed by back pain, but staying healthy and pain free rarely occurs without a little forethought and work on your end. But, if you put in that work and are smart about strengthening your body, we’re confident that you’ll have a healthy spine long into your golden years. But how exactly can you keep back pain from slowing you down? We answer that question in today’s blog.

There are two main classifications for how you can stop back pain from slowing you down as you age. There are the things you should regularly do, and then there are the things you should avoid doing. Let’s take a look at what you should be doing to help prevent back pain before we explain what activities to avoid.

Prevent Back Pain With These Activities

Here are some proactive ways you can help keep back pain from slowing you down:

• Strengthen Your Spine – Your joints and spinal discs all slowly wear down as you age. There’s no way to reverse this degeneration, but you can help slow it down by strengthening your spinal muscles and your core with daily activity and exercise.
• Regular Checkups – As we get older, it’s important to get screened for certain health conditions. While these may not directly affect your back, certain health conditions can weaken spinal structures, so make sure you’re seeing your primary care physician or any specialists on a regular basis as you get older.
• Healthy Diet – When you were younger, it was easier to eat junk food and burn off those calories fast, but our metabolism also slows as we age. A healthy diet will provide crucial vitamins and nutrients for your spine, but it will also help you keep those extra pounds off. Extra weight is channeled to the spine with every step you take, so avoid adding extra pounds if you want to keep stress off your back.
• Stop Small Problems – Prevention is preferred to treatment, but treating small problems is much preferred to treating big issues. If you have minor back pain, don’t ignore it. Proactively treat it to make sure it doesn’t snowball into a major pain. If minor back pain isn’t going away on its own, don’t just try to power through it, talk to a back pain specialist.

Avoid Back Pain By Stopping These Activities

To keep back pain at bay, you also have to avoid some activities that overstress and lead to spinal structure breakdown. Some of these activities are easily to avoid, while others take some planning and commitment.

• Quit Tobacco – Tobacco products speed up the degenerative process, which means you’re at an increased risk for spine pain if you smoke or use chewing tobacco. It also has whole body ramifications, so give up tobacco if you want to help keep spine pain from slowing you down.
• Posture Awareness – A lot of times, minor back pain is brought upon by ourselves through no great trauma. Most sprains, strains and spinal muscle injuries are caused by poor posture at the office, in the car or while we’re on the couch. When seated, strive to have your head positioned directly over your shoulders, and avoid slouching or leaning forward, as this can put undue stress on your cervical spine.
• Passive Treatments – Finally, if you want your spine to feel the best, avoid settling for passive treatment when pain begins to develop. Rest and pain medications both can play crucial roles in recovery, but they shouldn’t be your only treatment methods. Make sure you’re participating in active treatment options like physical therapy, stretching techniques, exercise or other types of modified activities to strengthen your spinal structures.

Dr. Sinicropi can also help keep spine pain from slowing you down! To learn how, ot to set up an appointment with his office, give him a call today.

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