Your back is important to almost every move you make, but you probably won't realize that until you hurt it. Then you may wish you could return to the days when you took your back for granted and didn't have any pain. Even though you can't turn back time, you can recover from most back injuries. Back pain is the #1 disability for those under age 45 and Americans spend more than $50 billion each year on back pain.
Studies show that participating in physical therapy can be just as effective as surgery for some causes of back pain.
In this segment, Carina Kahl, PT, Physical Therapist with Meritus Health, explains that back pain can come from a variety of reasons. She shares tips on keeping a strong back, and gives advice for those that suffer from back pain such as pain relief, improved function with daily activities and physical therapy.
Selected Podcast
Do You Suffer From Back Pain?
Featured Speaker:
Carina Kahl, PT
Carina Kahl, PT earned her doctorate of physical therapy at Andrews University in 2005. She also holds a B.A. in Spanish from Pacific Union College. Her clinical interests include manual therapy, sports injuries, therapeutic taping, functional strengthening and pre/post-operative rehabilitation. Ms. Kahl is married and has 2 children, ages 3 and 8 months. Transcription:
Do You Suffer From Back Pain?
Melanie Cole (Host): Your back is important to almost every move you make, but you probably always don’t realize it until you hurt it. Back pain is the number one disability for those under 45 and Americans spend more than 50 billion dollars each year on back pain. My guest today is Carina Kahl. She’s a physical therapist with Meritus Health. Welcome to the show, Carina. So how common is back pain today?
Carina Kahl (Guest): Wow, back pain is the number one diagnosis that we treat here, and I work in an outpatient facility where we’re treating people who either had surgery or some type of an injury that leads them to need physical therapy. That’s the number one diagnosis that we see every day. I don’t know a number off the top of my head, but it’s right up there.
Melanie: Are certain people at more risk for developing back pain?
Carina: Yeah, there are risk factors that can make it more likely for you to have back pain. There’s several different things, one being your age. As we get older, the likelihood of developing back pain increases commonly around 30 to 40 years old people can start having back pain. Things like being not as physically fit as you should be can contribute to back pain, including being overweight. Carrying too much weight on your spine increases that stress on your joints and your disks in your back and can cause pain.
Your job can be a risk factor – if you’re doing some physical work that requires you to lift or push or pull while you’re twisting your spine can make you more likely to develop back pain. Also, working behind a desk where you’re sitting all day, and especially if you have poor posture, it increases your chance of getting back pain.
Another thing would be smoking. Smoking is in essence where your body may not be getting all the nutrients to disks in your spine, so therefore, your chance of developing a disk problem is greater. Plus, if you smoke you’re more slow to heal from an injury, or your back pain just may not go away as quickly as it would have if you didn’t smoke.
Some other things would be diseases, like cancer and other types of issues including kidney problems and other things that can cause back pain, so it’s important to talk to your doctor about your risk factors there. And your heredity, so your family history may predispose you to having issues with your back.
Melanie: So when would somebody say, “Okay, it’s time that I go see a professional,” when their back – because everybody gets a little back pain – maybe you’re stuff in the morning – but when does it become a situation where you really need to see a physical therapist and get some help?
Carina: When it starts impacting your function it’s definitely a need to see a physical therapist. We encourage you t see your physician to discuss any issues you may be having, and they would determine if a referral to a physical therapist is appropriate or not. But those instances where you’re losing some function – you’re not able to participate in your normal activities or even your recreational activities without experiencing some pain, then it’s definitely a good case to be made for doing some physical therapy.
Melanie: So what would you do, as a physical therapist, for somebody experiencing back pain? Give us some prevention, some lifestyle tips, to maybe even preventing back pain in the first place.
Carina: That’s a great question. Being more physically active, in general, can lower your risk factor, make you less likely to develop back pain. If you are already having back pain, there’s specific exercises to help strengthen your spine and your core muscles that can help you to deal with the back pain and help it to resolve more quickly. That’s where physical therapy can play a role in helping you determine what the issues are that are contributing to your back pain as well as what the recommended treatments may be. Some of the treatment could involve like I mentioned, the exercises. Some things could be more manual techniques where we would use either our hands for soft tissue work or instruments that are designed for specific applications. There’s also modalities, such as heat and ice and taping and other types of treatments that may be appropriate depending on your specific case.
Melanie: Carina, let me just ask you then, you brought up something – you said ice. Are you somebody that recommends ice or heat? If somebody is just suffering from your average back pain, would you like them to use an ice pack or would you like them to use heat?
Carina: It depends on the type of back pain they’re experiencing. If it’s something that – an injury that happened, like a strain, and it’s the first time it’s happened, then immediately I would recommend ice. In the first three to five days, ice. After that three to five day period – some people as much as a week – then they can switch to heat. And from then on, it’s really up to the patient preference. Some people do respond better to ice throughout, and it makes them feel better, but some people, after the initial inflammatory phase – that first three to five days, or so – after that, they respond better to heat.
Melanie: So wrap it up for us, with your best advice, for the millions of people out there suffering from back pain, as a physical therapist, what you want them to know about keeping a strong back, maintaining a good posture, and even things that you’d like them to do daily at work?
Carina: That’s a great tip there about being at work. That’s one of the places – you’re sitting at your desk, your posture is something that should be in the back of your mind the whole time. Stopping for just a minute or two – it doesn’t have to be very long to do a couple of stretches where you pull your shoulders back and stick your chest forward a little bit, turn your head, tip your head to the sides, keep your neck a little flexible too. Even just getting up and taking a lap around the office can help to improve your tolerance for sitting and make your spine not be as stressed. Just getting into a regular fitness routine can be helpful to maintain a healthy body weight and just that exercise regularity helps to decrease your chance of having back pain. And if you are having some pain already, talk to your doctor and see if physical therapy would be helpful for you and they will potentially give you an order, and they can send you in our direction.
Melanie: And tell people how they can get in touch with you?
Carina: The easiest way to get ahold of us would be through making a phone call, 301-714-4025. That would be Total Rehab Care at Robinwood, and we would put you in touch with our schedule who would take care of scheduling your evaluation visit.
Melanie: Thank you, so much, Carina, for being with us. It’s such important information for listeners to hear. You’re listening to Your Health Matters with Meritus Health, and for more information, you can go to MeritusHealth.com, that’s MeritusHealth.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks, so much, for listening.
Do You Suffer From Back Pain?
Melanie Cole (Host): Your back is important to almost every move you make, but you probably always don’t realize it until you hurt it. Back pain is the number one disability for those under 45 and Americans spend more than 50 billion dollars each year on back pain. My guest today is Carina Kahl. She’s a physical therapist with Meritus Health. Welcome to the show, Carina. So how common is back pain today?
Carina Kahl (Guest): Wow, back pain is the number one diagnosis that we treat here, and I work in an outpatient facility where we’re treating people who either had surgery or some type of an injury that leads them to need physical therapy. That’s the number one diagnosis that we see every day. I don’t know a number off the top of my head, but it’s right up there.
Melanie: Are certain people at more risk for developing back pain?
Carina: Yeah, there are risk factors that can make it more likely for you to have back pain. There’s several different things, one being your age. As we get older, the likelihood of developing back pain increases commonly around 30 to 40 years old people can start having back pain. Things like being not as physically fit as you should be can contribute to back pain, including being overweight. Carrying too much weight on your spine increases that stress on your joints and your disks in your back and can cause pain.
Your job can be a risk factor – if you’re doing some physical work that requires you to lift or push or pull while you’re twisting your spine can make you more likely to develop back pain. Also, working behind a desk where you’re sitting all day, and especially if you have poor posture, it increases your chance of getting back pain.
Another thing would be smoking. Smoking is in essence where your body may not be getting all the nutrients to disks in your spine, so therefore, your chance of developing a disk problem is greater. Plus, if you smoke you’re more slow to heal from an injury, or your back pain just may not go away as quickly as it would have if you didn’t smoke.
Some other things would be diseases, like cancer and other types of issues including kidney problems and other things that can cause back pain, so it’s important to talk to your doctor about your risk factors there. And your heredity, so your family history may predispose you to having issues with your back.
Melanie: So when would somebody say, “Okay, it’s time that I go see a professional,” when their back – because everybody gets a little back pain – maybe you’re stuff in the morning – but when does it become a situation where you really need to see a physical therapist and get some help?
Carina: When it starts impacting your function it’s definitely a need to see a physical therapist. We encourage you t see your physician to discuss any issues you may be having, and they would determine if a referral to a physical therapist is appropriate or not. But those instances where you’re losing some function – you’re not able to participate in your normal activities or even your recreational activities without experiencing some pain, then it’s definitely a good case to be made for doing some physical therapy.
Melanie: So what would you do, as a physical therapist, for somebody experiencing back pain? Give us some prevention, some lifestyle tips, to maybe even preventing back pain in the first place.
Carina: That’s a great question. Being more physically active, in general, can lower your risk factor, make you less likely to develop back pain. If you are already having back pain, there’s specific exercises to help strengthen your spine and your core muscles that can help you to deal with the back pain and help it to resolve more quickly. That’s where physical therapy can play a role in helping you determine what the issues are that are contributing to your back pain as well as what the recommended treatments may be. Some of the treatment could involve like I mentioned, the exercises. Some things could be more manual techniques where we would use either our hands for soft tissue work or instruments that are designed for specific applications. There’s also modalities, such as heat and ice and taping and other types of treatments that may be appropriate depending on your specific case.
Melanie: Carina, let me just ask you then, you brought up something – you said ice. Are you somebody that recommends ice or heat? If somebody is just suffering from your average back pain, would you like them to use an ice pack or would you like them to use heat?
Carina: It depends on the type of back pain they’re experiencing. If it’s something that – an injury that happened, like a strain, and it’s the first time it’s happened, then immediately I would recommend ice. In the first three to five days, ice. After that three to five day period – some people as much as a week – then they can switch to heat. And from then on, it’s really up to the patient preference. Some people do respond better to ice throughout, and it makes them feel better, but some people, after the initial inflammatory phase – that first three to five days, or so – after that, they respond better to heat.
Melanie: So wrap it up for us, with your best advice, for the millions of people out there suffering from back pain, as a physical therapist, what you want them to know about keeping a strong back, maintaining a good posture, and even things that you’d like them to do daily at work?
Carina: That’s a great tip there about being at work. That’s one of the places – you’re sitting at your desk, your posture is something that should be in the back of your mind the whole time. Stopping for just a minute or two – it doesn’t have to be very long to do a couple of stretches where you pull your shoulders back and stick your chest forward a little bit, turn your head, tip your head to the sides, keep your neck a little flexible too. Even just getting up and taking a lap around the office can help to improve your tolerance for sitting and make your spine not be as stressed. Just getting into a regular fitness routine can be helpful to maintain a healthy body weight and just that exercise regularity helps to decrease your chance of having back pain. And if you are having some pain already, talk to your doctor and see if physical therapy would be helpful for you and they will potentially give you an order, and they can send you in our direction.
Melanie: And tell people how they can get in touch with you?
Carina: The easiest way to get ahold of us would be through making a phone call, 301-714-4025. That would be Total Rehab Care at Robinwood, and we would put you in touch with our schedule who would take care of scheduling your evaluation visit.
Melanie: Thank you, so much, Carina, for being with us. It’s such important information for listeners to hear. You’re listening to Your Health Matters with Meritus Health, and for more information, you can go to MeritusHealth.com, that’s MeritusHealth.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks, so much, for listening.