Top 11 Treatments That Actually Cause More Pain In Lower Back Arthritis

Lower back arthritis treatments often only provide short term back pain relief, while allowing the root problem to get worse over time. This often leads to worse back pain and more problems like disc herniations, lumbar stenosis, and other chronic degenerative back problems. Healthcare professionals are usually focused on treating back arthritis with things like medications, injections, procedures, and surgery.

Even most physical therapists who don’t do surgery medications or injections are used to treating people that have had a back surgery and aren’t always up to date on what to do for somebody who’s trying to avoid having a back surgery. My goal in this video is to help guide you through getting your back arthritis better.

By showing you what things not to do, I need to let you know that in the comments below, there’s a video on the top five essential exercises that you need to start doing to help your back arthritis problems. So go check that out to begin to know what to do to fix this problem.

But in this video, I’m going to tell you the top 11 treatments that actually worsen low back arthritis over time, the first treatment that’s very often done in physiotherapy clinics, is back extension exercises and stretches especially aggressive back extension, exercises and stretches.

Now, I’m not saying that back extension altogether 100% is wrong, I think it’s okay to do it at times to improve mobility, especially if you can’t move in that direction. But once you have full range of motion in leaning backwards, and you feel like it’s not painful anymore, it’s not causing any problems, then stretching and exercising in that direction is usually not the best thing to be doing.

And I’m talking about exercises like this where you might stand up, put your hands on your hips, and then bend backwards into extreme extension like this. And there’s other versions where people will lie down, face down like this and press up this way and hold it and stretch or even exercise where they are lifting up their legs and their upper body like that in order to get the back muscles to get to exercise.

And I’ll talk more about back muscles and exercising them. And we’ll talk more about exercising back muscles further on in this video. But I want to focus on just getting into that extreme back motion, it’s usually a bad thing, because in back arthritis, there’s usually some stiff joints somewhere in the lower back here.

And if you’re bending backwards aggressively, those stiffest joints tend to not move as good, because the ones that are mobile are going to get older stretched, so you’re technically over stretching the already mobile joints. And this causes worse problems later on.

The second treatment that makes things worse, is aggressive twisting exercises and stretches. And it’s for the same reason when you have stiffness in usually these joints up here in the upper lower back, then the joints below the discs below, they end up moving excessively and you can loosen the disc loosen the ligaments in the area and cause worse problems like stenosis and disc herniations.

So I’m talking about doing aggressive twisting exercises like where you might sit somewhere and then twist as far as you can and aggressively push it. Or some people like to do seated ab exercises where they’re holding a weight right here and they’re twisting as far as they can, in this direction. Those types of twisting exercises ended up forcefully moving the already looses joints in the spine. And it’s important to fix the imbalances first, so that you can get more uniform mobility through all the vertebrae of the spine.

The third wrong treatment is side bending exercises. And what this is, is when you’re standing up and they have you bend over this way, you might find this on the internet where people are bending sideways, and then holding a weight doing it there’ll be dangling a weight from their side and coming up against it or going all the way over and back with resistance.

Same thing as the last two, you’re moving those joints that are already loose way too much. And you’re going to worsen the condition of those already loose joints. And you have to go back and free up the stiff joints and these exercises. And these exercises are not good to do if you haven’t loosened up the other joints which means you might need hands on work or you might need to be addressing the muscle imbalance at the root of the problem.

The fourth wrong treatment is unfocused abdominal exercises. Now what I mean by this because abdominal exercises are great, in fact necessary to treat lumbar spine arthritis. But if you think of your abdominal muscles, here’s the skeleton, those abdominal muscles run from the bones down here the pelvis and all the way up into the ribcage and they wrap around the back and have attachments to the lower back here.

So when you go do abdominal exercises, you need to make sure that you’re hitting the lower abdominals because most people when they do abdominal exercises, they’re getting the upper abdominals. It’s right here right below that ribcage.

Now an easy way to tell if you’ve been doing this incorrectly you’ve been getting your upper abdominals too much is to find your belly button. On a skeleton here, the belly button usually lines up with the third lumbar vertebrae, the middle here, so it’s about right here.

If you cut your abdominals into an upper half above the belly button, and a lower half below the belly button, then you need to think about tightening and using your lower abdominals more than your upper abdominals every time you do abdominal exercises that will help you to fix your back problem. Rather than worsen it.

I see so many people that come to me for lumbar arthritis for lower back arthritis problems. And they say I’ve been doing an ab exercises I’ve been with a physical therapist, they haven’t even had ab exercises. I saw videos, I even looked up research that that doctors looked at and physical therapists looked at and saw their dominant exercises are good for back arthritis conditions. But it made my back pain worse.

That’s because they targeted incorrectly, the abdominal exercise was unfocused on the lower abs. But it got the upper abs. And it’s confusing because you’re doing ab work and you feel your abs working. But you’re not always aware of the difference between the upper and the lower abs.

The fifth treatment that actually makes back arthritis worse, is focusing on strengthening the back muscles. Those are the muscles that run up and down the back side of the spine here in the healthcare field, people that don’t fully understand the mechanics of what’s going on in the back. Just quickly assume that if you’ve got any sort of back problem, you should go strengthen the back muscles.

And they don’t understand how the ABS work on the glutes work how other hip muscles affect this, how the upper spine can affect this to how your everyday movements affect what your back’s doing, there’s so many factors to take into consideration in order to properly help a back problem. And just going to go strengthen the back muscles is really low level thinking it’s really not what needs to happen.

And like 99% of people that have back arthritis problems, but typical physical therapists and even doctors that recommend exercises will prescribe will give patients exercises that make these muscles work, they’ll do that Superman exercise where you’re lying face down, and you pick up your shoulders and head and arms. And it causes the back muscles, the ones that are right here on the spine to get tired and fatigued.

Or they’ll go do other back extension exercises like certain deadlifts or where they’re holding weights and bending over like this and keeping their back straight. There’s all kinds of other exercises. Another common one is this one, where people are in their hands and knees, and they’re picking up an arm and a leg they call this one bird dogs. And they’re alternate sides, they might hold or they might do reps. But the focus is to get the back muscles here to activate and work.

And it may actually feel a little bit relieving in the short term like right after you do the exercise. But what tends to happen is within hours, definitely by the end of the day, the back tends to return to the state that it was before it. So it was if it was already painful, it’s going to keep hurting. And the reason for that is because usually the root of the problem is if these muscles in the back are too strong.

And so if you go strengthen them more, then it feeds into the problem and it ends up compressing the joints back here. And that joint compression is what sets up the arthritis. Arthritis is a response to bad forces going through joints. And so if you’ve been diagnosed with lumbar spine arthritis, when you have too much force going through your back joints right here, and it’s usually because those back muscles are working way too hard.

So you don’t want to exercise them, you don’t want to strengthen them, you actually want to back off and get some more flexibility in them and you want to work other muscles like the lower abdominals in order to take pressure off those back joints. Now on people that are not as severe, they don’t have a ton of back pain, but they know that they’ve got lumbar arthritis, they’ve been told they have it and maybe they still have occasional back pain.

Most of those people are trying to go to exercise to help manage their overall health, their weight, their fitness, their cardio, endurance, all that stuff. They want to keep their back healthy, of course. And when they go start doing exercises, they’re often advised by health care professionals and other fitness professionals not to put weights on their body because it’s going to load their spine and cause worse back arthritis.

So this is a treatment that I actually think is a mistake. You need to load the spine properly with the correct muscle balance so that you can actually improve your mobility and your spine and set up the environment for healing your lumbar spine arthritis, specifically strengthening the glutes and the lower abdominals like I’ve already mentioned, because the glutes are right below the spine and they offer a lot of stability.

They offer a lot of control and the ABS helped to shut off those back muscles so that you can avoid so much compression through your spine. Now we have videos on how to strengthen the on how to strengthen the glutes, it’s really too much to fit into this video, this video is already going to be longer than I wanted it to be.

But I have a link in the description below for a playlist of all our videos on lumbar spine arthritis. If you want to go even more into depth and fixing the root problem and getting those glutes and ABS stronger the right way, we’ve got a program called the 28 day back health and wellness boost program, that program is 100% focused on fixing the root problem that leads to things like back arthritis and other chronic back conditions.

You can learn more about that down in the description below, you can find the link there, the seventh treatment mistake is focusing on weight loss too much, very often doctors, you know physicians, they’ll see somebody with back problems. And if they’re on the heavier side, they’ll say,

Well, you need to lose weight and they make that the focus of the treatment. And then the poor patient leaves the office feeling ashamed because you know, they shouldn’t have been eating the way they have been in not exercising the way they have been. And then they’re dealing with back pain on top of that, and then they get caught in this vicious cycle of I go try to exercise and then my back pain gets worse.

And I can’t exercise now because of my back pain. And so I’m putting on more weight or not managing my weight and you just can’t get unstuck from there sometimes. So very often I see people in this situation and I tell them, Look, if you’re not more than 50 to 70 pounds overweight, then don’t focus on the weight loss right now focus on doing the right things to get your back pain under control.

Because if you can gain the strength in the right areas, like the glutes and the abdominals, you might be able to gain enough strength pretty quick to offset even your excessive weight to feel better. Now if you’re pushing 7080 100 pounds or more, then it might be more of a priority for you to go lose some weight. And honestly, it’s going to be easier for you to lose 10-20 pounds, the heavier you are.

But once you’re in that range of 50 to 70 pounds within your goal weight with where you should be in your normal weight. If you’re dealing with back arthritis, then it’s time to make sure you step up your game and treating your back arthritis correctly. So that you can feel better going into exercise. And you know that you’re safe and not making the problem worse.

The eighth treatment mistake this is another recommendation from doctors is resting, and they don’t usually explain how to rest. And there’s a certain way to rest what most healthcare professionals mean when they say go rest is they’re talking about relative rest.

So if you’re a busy body, if you’re the type of person that hardly ever sits down during the day, you’re always running around the house doing chores, you’re just on your feet quite a bit, then for you going from being super active like that to lying in bed all day long is not a good thing, you still need to move, you still need to get up and make yourself a meal, you still need to get up and take care of yourself, you know, shower and go run errands, things like that.

But you need to think of it more in terms of percentages. If a normal day is 100% of the activity that you do, then you need to cut it down to 50%. And see how that helps your back problem. Maybe you can get away with doing 75% of your normal activities and still feel better. And that that chunk that you rested that 25 to 50% that you didn’t do is actually what you really need in order to feel better.

And this is really good news, especially for people that love to exercise because you may be sad because people that love going to the gym, they feel great going to the gym, and if you all of a sudden can’t go to the gym when you’ve been going for years 234 or five days a week, and you have this back problem. And now you got to go zero days a week for months, it is depressing.

So in reality, what you might need to do is still go to the gym, but cut your workout intensity down from 100%, which are normal is down to 7550, maybe even less than 50%. You have to find what works for you so that you don’t worsen your back condition each day and as time goes on. So a relative rest is a much better option than just lying in bed doing 100% Better rest, you don’t want to do that, that’s actually going to make your back problem worse, because the weakest muscles get even weaker really fast. And that sets you up to have worse pain later on.

Once you do begin to move. Now resting does help you will feel relief because the tissues that are irritated in your back, have a chance to calm down and they’re no longer irritated. But the root problem still remains and if you’re not moving in a way that’s helping that root problem, then you’re going to feel worse over time.

Number nine is relying on medications. This is a treatment option. That is just not a good idea for the long term. Now I always tell patients look if you’re grumpy at home if you’re treating your spouse not nice because of your back pain. If you’re just not feeling well you’re not sleeping good because of this back problem than taking some pain medication might be a good idea for you depending on all the factors right talk to your doctor.

Side effects you have to weigh that consideration yourself to see if it’s right for you to take pain medications, but relying on pain medications day in and day out weeks on end months on end, without fixing the root mechanical problem, that’s not a good idea. Because medications don’t make you stronger.

They don’t free up joints, they don’t unsniff In stiff joints, they don’t give you more mobility, they don’t teach you to move better, they just take the pain away for a short amount of time. Meanwhile, the root problem festers and grows over time, you’re just going to get worse. This includes getting injections. injections are medication that is injected directly into the spine, usually to the area that that hurts, they’ll usually do like a set joint, sometimes an SI joint down here.

But right below the back, there’s that’s a common spot for back pain to same thing with injections, that’s medication that’s injected. So you’re just masking the problem and not really treating the root issue.

It’s just biding your time. Now I have patients that I tell, hey, I think you’re a right person to go get an injection, but you have to be working on the root problem, you can’t just get the injection and not change another thing in your life, you have to be exercising the right muscles, usually the glutes and the abs. And you have to progress those exercises in a scheduled way according to what your body allows, so that you can get out of this back arthritis problem and feel healthy for the long term

Number 10 is a radiofrequency ablation procedure. Now, if you’ve never heard of this technique, this procedure, then that’s a good thing. If you’ve heard of this procedure, then you’ve probably had back problems for a while you might even be seeing a pain management doctor, or you know somebody that’s seen a pain management doctor because those are usually the people doing these procedures.

This procedure is an option for when the pain is chronic and medications haven’t worked. It’s kind of like a near last resort thing before doing some massive surgery on your back. And what they’re doing in a radiofrequency ablation procedure is they’re actually burning the nerves that come out of the spine and go to the area where it hurts. And so the thought process behind this is the nerve that is detecting the pain in your back. Let’s burn it.

That way, it doesn’t send the signal up to your brain that doesn’t fix the mechanical root problem. And there’s some muscles that are connected to that nerve, and you need those muscles in order to help fix the root problem. So I’m a huge proponent of don’t do the RFA is what they call it the radiofrequency ablation because you’re setting yourself up for potentially worse situations later on because you don’t have certain muscles functioning normally now.

Now there’s some people that are going to be right for an RFA procedure. You know, maybe your pain is that bad or you’ve sincerely tried fixing issues and maybe there’s some genetic problem inside that needs to be addressed with an RFA procedure. You need to weigh those options and see what’s best for you.

But I think RFA procedures are overdone. And very often they leave people worse. So do your research and be very careful when considering doing an RFA we’ve done a video on it, you can go find it in our archives of videos, I’ve got a lot more information about radiofrequency ablation is on that video, go check it out.

And the number 11 treatment that actually makes back pain worse is back surgery, spine surgery. And I’m not joking when I say this, there’s research studies that show that people that get back surgery are more likely to continue having back pain afterwards, maybe it improved a bit. Maybe it didn’t. And surgeons even know this.

 And they’ll even tell you if you’ve ever talked to a spine surgeon, they’ll flat out tell you, this may not work, this may not work, you might end up worse after I do this surgery on you. They’ll flat out say that to you. But usually people in the situation where they’re in the doctor’s office a surgeon’s office looking to get a spine procedure done, you know like rods and screws put in they’re desperate and they don’t know what else to do.

And when they see the surgeon and you know he looks real professional or she looks real professional. And you might go to their office with their huge oak desk. And although there are multiple degrees from all over the country behind them and certifications and you may have talked to you know, a friend or somebody else in the waiting room who says oh, this doctor is fantastic and great nicest doctor ever. I love them. That’s all great.

But look at the facts. Surgery doesn’t cure back pain consistently. And the reason is, it’s not treating the root problem. Usually there’s muscle imbalances that are not being addressed properly by by physical therapists and by other health care practitioners out there. And most people have just taken medications and injections. Those don’t fix the root problem either.

Surgery is merely stiffening joints that are too loose, or cutting out a disc herniation that’s pressing on something causing pain. And that may be necessary in some people, but it may not be the final solution. You still need to make an effort to fix the root problem. Even if you had a surgery because you might be watching this already and said yeah, I had a back surgery and I’m worse now you still have a shot.

Fix the root problem of your back issue which is usually a muscle imbalance where the glutes are too weak the abdominals are too weak lower abdominals. And it tends to get better because it’s the mechanics that are off and surgery just doesn’t solve the mechanics problems. It gives you stability, sometimes for better sometimes for worse very often for worse, but it really isn’t a last resort option in my mind, I think it’s, it’s an option you need to get the muscle imbalance fix.

That’s really the cure for many, many back problems. Now once again, I want to mention that I have videos on here to help you treat low lower back arthritis, you can go check them out in the description below, check out our 28 day back health and wellness boost program as well completely focused on treating the root problem.

Hey, if you thought this video was helpful for you, give it a thumbs up please and share this with somebody that you think needs to hear that somebody who’s suffering with lower back arthritis. And don’t forget to subscribe and ring that notification bell so that you don’t miss out on any of the helpful videos. We post each and every week. I’ll see you in the next video. Bye