How do I know if I’m making my Back Pain worse?

If you have been working on recovering from back pain and are confused on what you can and cannot do then you are not alone. It can be hard to tell when to push and when to pull back on activity. It may even be scary sometimes when you have been having a lot of improvement and then have a day of increased back pain and you don’t know what it means. I understand how frustrating they can be so managing back pain flare ups is a conversation that always has to happen. Resting and avoiding activity has not been working for you so you need to try something else. Pain is the way the brain tells you that it doesn’t like what is happening. However, just because the body does not like it doesn’t always mean stop. I can help guide you through what is going to be helpful and what isn’t for your particular issue and get you back to being the active adult you have always been. 

Where is the Back Pain?

A better indicator of when back pain is good or bad is the location of it. If you start an activity and then start to feel shooting pain from your low back down your leg that keeps getting worse then that is a sign that you should stop. If the opposite is happening and the pain is centralizing out of the leg towards the back then that is a good sign that you should continue even if the activity is painful. If after each set the pain you have when bending over does not go as far down the leg then you are absolutely doing the right things. 

Does the mobility improve?

Another sign of acceptable back pain is your range of motion. If doing an activity provokes some pain but each time you do it you move further into the stretch, start feeling increased mobility and strength then that is an okay pain to push through. If after doing an activity you lose some range of motion then it is not a good activity for you yet. No matter how good it feels to do if your range of motion decreases after then it should not be repeated. 

What not to do

A lot of people will use pain level as an indicator of progress but you will run into some issues this way. Pain is so subjective and I’m sure anytime asks you to rate your back pain out of 10 it is difficult to do so. Pain can change and spike based off stress and inflammation which can happen in the moment but are not signs of a true flare up. An increase in back pain can mean that the body is unhappy with what is happening but not that it is bad. If you have increased pain as well as pain that peripheralizes and obstructs your range of motion then you have a problem that needs to addressed. We are looking to see trends in decreased pain over time, unfortunately it doesn’t all happen at once. 

What to do instead

Since we are tracking several different pieces of information regarding your back pain it is best to start small and build up. During an evaluation we typically test one exercise at a time and add in more as we go. We will go through a set of an exercise and then re-evaluate all of your symptoms. Then move on to the next exercise if everything looks okay. I would rather you do one really specific exercise 8 times a day opposed to doing 8 exercises once a day. As we move along in the process we will add in more exercises until you are back to full strength training and doing the activities that you love. 

If you are confused on when to push and when to rest I can understand the frustration. Knowing which exercises are going to be most practical to you is key to resolving your back pain. Reach out to book a rehab-focused consultation and I can help guide you through the process and help educate so you can manage on your own.