Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka Helps Back Pain Sufferers Fight Fear Avoidance and Move More
Fear of back pain? Once you’ve had it, you say “yes!” Your Sitka chiropractor gets this. Sitka back pain and neck pain patients don’t want to experience that pain again. Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka helps spine pain sufferers regain their confidence with encouragement and exercise.
FEAR AVOIDANCE DUE TO BACK PAIN
Back pain sufferers don't want to revisit back pain if they have any options at all. That desire - whether obvious or subtle, stated or just ruminated in the mind – establishes the ‘perfect storm’ for a behavior called fear-avoidance. Patients with persistent spinal pain syndrome - post-surgically generated or not – elicited high levels of fear avoidance, anxiety, and depression. (1) Researchers explained that the pain experience is not just physical because emotions, behaviors and beliefs are mixed in, too. Fear avoidant behavior like fearing the act of lifting an object grows and affects muscle behavior without realizing it. A recent study compared fear-avoidant beliefs and the lumbar spine paraspinal muscle activity use while lifting in both back pain and in pain-free persons. Fear of lifting an object with a flexed spine as documented in a questionnaire was negatively associated with erector spinae activity to protect the spine from harm. The proper way to lift has been argued through the years. Lifting with a straight back has been portrayed as safer than lifting with a flexed back though research has not really supported that while lifting with a lordotic posture has been found to result in more erector spinae muscle activity giving rise to muscle fatigue and pain. (2) Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka knows the significance of handling fear avoidance and its link to better quality of life.
HOW TO MANAGE FEAR AVOIDANCE
Researchers wrote that back pain sufferers today ‘get’ that they must keep active but some require a little more support and encouragement to move and exercise due to a lack of confidence in their spines’ ability to exercise without causing pain. The healthcare provider not only can provide the latest findings on pain control but also train the back pain patient to be physical in the safest way possible. (3) If you are that patient, Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka is your trainer! We are a team and can help you move easier and with less fear and deliver gentle, relieving spinal manipulation. 12 weeks of chiropractic manipulation along with exercise for older adults with chronic back pain boosted their self-efficacy and fear-avoidant behaviors along with reductions in disability. A 30% or more drop in the Oswestry Disability Index suggested positive response to care. (4) The more engaged a patient is with treatment, the greater the influence on the feeling of self-efficacy and disability reduction. (5) Let us work together to control your Sitka back pain so it does not control you.
CONTACT Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Tom Menendez on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes the relief with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management for an older patient with back pain for whom fear avoidance is understandable.
Make your Sitka chiropractic appointment now so that if you are questioned whether you fear back pain, you can say “no”!
