You’ll often have heard from your older relatives and friends that the back is a precious part of your body that will eventually give way to pain and instability. It’s true that many older people experience significant back problems in their old age, sometimes reducing them to fewer outings and poorer sleep. Yet it’s not inevitable that this could happen to you, and there are ways to keep yourself healthy as you enter old age.
Remember that prevention is smarter than treatment when it comes to your back, so knowing how to keep your back healthy is an important aspect of a happy, healthy life in your senior years.
Treatments
The most important point for those seeking to maintain a healthy back is to visit the doctor if they ever experience any concerns or pains. That applies to you, too; if you find that you’re experiencing pain in your back as you enter old age, you must seek medical attention as easily as possible to find the cause and the right treatment, as well as prevent the ailment from worsening.
It’s useful to know that there are several forms of treatment designed to help you return your life to normalcy and to deal with the pain once and for all. These might range from simple treatments to advanced, innovative treatments, such as stem cell therapies that see your spinal column injected with these special cells to encourage healing.
To learn more about this specific treatment, specialists like bioxcellerator.com off an in-depth explanation as to how it works. Meanwhile, there are other forms of treatment, therapies, surgical procedures, and medication that can help you reduce the pain, remedy the cause, or gently move away from the cause of the pain.
Whatever the case, finding the root cause and treating that cause (not just masking it) is important – which a medical professional will be able to do. Back pain can just as easily stem from poor posture or an unusual gait that it can be a significant issue in your back itself, so knowing just how to address your specific form of pain by determining the cause can help you to move beyond the agony and into a place of healthy, happy existence free from the pain that has been bothering you for weeks, months, or perhaps even years.
Exercise
When it comes to your back, two main parts of it can experience injury and pain. The first is your spine; the second is your muscles, which can reduce in size and strength as you age, resulting in pain that can take several months or even years to go away. Some muscular pain can remain for the rest of your life if it’s left untreated. As such, maintaining the muscles in your back is an important step as you enter the golden years of your life.
Here are some ways to do that:
- Try to stretch out your back across the day, either by lying in bed or by using a medicine ball. This helps the muscles relieve tension and, therefore, aches and pains.
- Exercise your abdominal muscles via yoga, pilates, and other low-stress exercises to ensure that they’re able to support your back muscles.
- Take to the pool, where simple body exercises in the water will help you keep your most important back muscles healthy and strong.
Above all, you should always exercise within your capabilities. If you go from zero back and abdominal exercise straight into a regime of sit-ups and other workouts, you’re likely to pull a muscle and experience the pain that you were seeking to avoid in the first place. Moreover, some workouts are better (and worse) than others for back pain, so conducting research into the right exercises is paramount.
If you’re in doubt about where to start with exercises, speak to your doctor, a gym expert, or a personal trainer, or ask a physiologist to help you plan an age-appropriate back exercise regime. A chiropractor may also be of assistance in addition to your doctor.
Diet
Your diet will affect your back in multiple ways. For one, if you’re building ft around your waist, you’ll have to carry that extra weight around with you. This puts extra strain on your back and can harm your muscles and spine.
Furthermore, keeping fit isn’t just about exercising; it’s also about reducing the calories, unhealthy fat, and sugar you consume in order to keep your overall weight down. There’s more to your diet than just the reduction of fat around your waist, back, and abdomen, though. You should also:
- Ensure there’s calcium in your diet, as this is key for healthy bone growth and regeneration. This can help your spine remain healthier for longer.
- Reduce harmful substance abuse, be that with cigarettes, alcohol, or other substances. They can harm your organs and reduce your body’s ability to fight off illness.
- Eat a balanced diet. Your body, organs, and muscles all require different types of foodstuff to be truly healthy. Try to ensure a balanced diet as much as possible to maintain good holistic health.
Naturally, it can be difficult to plan meals around what is healthiest for your weight – and, thus, your back. That’s why people visit nutritionists or simply search online for helpful guides on eating a healthy and balanced diet. You’ll find all the information you need to help support your back’s health online.
Medical Attention
With the strongest willpower in the world, an excellent diet, and a good exercise regime, you may still experience back pain as you grow older. It’s likely that, in the first instance, you will feel that the pain is not significant enough to visit the doctor for a diagnosis.
Often, it’s only after you’ve been experiencing pain for weeks or even months that you’ll consider calling up a doctor for a consultation. The tip here is simple: don’t put off going to the doctor. Instead, go as soon as you notice an unusual pain in your back. You never know whether there might be something more concerning at play than a simple twinge in a muscle.
When you visit your doctor with back pain, it’s important that you can describe the pain to them. The back is a complex part of the body and can be the source of many different types of pain. During the examination of your back, the doctor will try to determine whether you need further attention and treatment, or if this is a complaint that will ease up soon. Don’t hold back or play it down; be honest, communicate with your doctor, and give them all the information they need to decide what will be the best for the health of your back going forward.
Final Thoughts
Your back is a crucial part of your body to keep healthy, and it can be a great source of discomfort and pain if it’s compromised. This article has shown you how to take better care of this critical area of the body, ensuring that you can live a long, happy, and comfortable life into your senior years with minimal spinal complaints.
