Top 12 Most Asked Questions About Back Spasms

In this video, I’m going to be answering the top 12 most asked questions about back spasms. Now, if you’ve ever had a back spasm, it’s a tight gripping sensation in your muscles, it’s uncontrollable, you’re not really trying to do anything and all of a sudden your back muscles just seize up and squeeze. And it’s very painful and immobilizes you, those are the types of back spasms that I’m talking about.

You may get them on the lighter end or the spasm just a little bit not as intense, but they’re still quite painful, and can usually be quite debilitating as well. So number one, the first question is, how do you get rid of spasms in your back, there’s many different options to get rid of the spasms in your back.

The first one is usually pain medication, people go to take ibuprofen, Tylenol, or they may go to the doctor if they can make it there comfortably, sometimes even the ER to get medication from a doctor prescription strength medication. Muscle relaxers are also an option for people in an emergency situation like this.

If you don’t want to go that route, you want to try something natural first, the easiest thing to do is find a way to get onto your side. Sometimes this happens unexpectedly, and you may end up on the floor, you may end up on a couch or stuck in bed, try to get onto your side, and then tuck your knees into your chest just like this.

You can get your knees in if you can lie on your side and pull your knees into your chest and start to put a stretch on the back. Then once you’re also doing that you want to suck in your abs, like you’re trying to push your back towards like the wall behind me here, you’re essentially trying to round out your back.

Because when you do that you’re stressed you’re opening up the joints in your spine, which leads to the muscles wanting to relax, the muscles will spasm usually in response to the joints getting compressed and pitched. There’s some root problems that we’ll talk about more here in just a minute. But if you can get those joints to open up, that usually sets up the muscles relaxing.

And massaging the area is also a great idea if you have help around. If you get one of those massage guns, that also helps, you can just reach back there with your own hands and massage your back.

Getting those muscles to calm down makes a tremendous difference as well. Now all these things that I’m mentioning are short term solutions, which are extremely needed if all of a sudden your back gives out and you want to cramp up in your back or spasm in your back. But in the long term, you’ve got to treat the root problem, which is usually a muscle imbalance.

The question number two is what do back spasms feel like they are tight gripping sensations in your muscles. It feels like an uncontrollable contraction of your back muscles. It may be on one side, it may be on both sides.

But in the spine here the muscles that are running up and down the back here it feels like all of a sudden that muscle just squeezes as hard as it possibly can, without you trying to do it. If you’ve ever done any back exercises, like where you lean backwards, if you just right now if you don’t have you back spasm problems, if you just straighten out your back and curb and lean back and look up just like this, you’ll feel your back muscles begin to tighten up.

And if you can imagine that sensation times 10 or as hard as it can possibly go. That’s exactly what a back muscle spasm feels like. So if you’re watching this video asking yourself Do I really have a back spasm? It may be that you have more of a chronic backache, like a chronic back pain. back spasms tend to not be chronic, they tend to be the opposite acute, they come on suddenly.

 And they usually go away fairly suddenly, some can last a little bit longer than you know a few moments or a few hours. Some may go on for days, but usually they’ll give up and you’ll still have some backache some back pain, but the muscles no longer spasming real hard. Question number three is what triggers a back spasm.

The joints here in your spine, there there’s pairs of joints at every single level between all the vertebrae, all the bones of the spine, when they get pinched or when the nerves nearby get pinched. The muscles will spasm in response to protect the area to keep it from moving so much that you don’t do any further damage.

Usually the muscles will do that because there’s an imbalance these muscles that are running up and down the back here on the sides of the spine have been overused and they’re just prone to being used too much. They’ve been compressing the joints and the nerves already, they’re probably compressing your discs as well. And when they’re prone to being used like this, they’re prone to causing a spasm to protect the area from further injury.

Question number four, what is the fastest way to recover from back spasms? While in the short term doing all the stuff that I talked about? In Question number one is necessarily getting on your side. Bring your knees to your chest, taking pain medication, go and go get prescription pain medication, maybe an injection, maybe going to the ER if you just absolutely need that kind of help.

All those things are good to recover in the short term, but to get the long term To recover, you’ve got to fix the imbalance. And going back to these muscles that run up and down this the size of your spine here, these muscles work together with the abdominal muscles on the front. So if you want to avoid getting recurring back spasms, if that’s been your case, for a while now, maybe over years, your back goes out and you spasm and you kind of are feeling like it’s less and less predictable.

And maybe they’re farther, they’re fewer between like you don’t have as much time before you flare up, you’re becoming more frequent. The long term solution, the fastest way to get long term resolution of back spasms is to strengthen your abdominals, you’ve got to get stronger in your abdominals. And you’ve got to do it in a way that does not strengthen your back muscles.

Now, a lot of people, a lot of health specialist, recommend that you work on your back muscles, which is completely counterintuitive to what I’m telling you. If these muscles are overly dominant, they’re already big, if you just feel your back, and those muscles are kind of hard. If you’re someone else who doesn’t have any back spasms feel their back, they’re probably softer in the area than your back muscles are over dominant, and it just doesn’t make any sense to go exercise them more.

In fact, you should not exercise them, and focus completely on working out the abdominals and allow these muscles back here to weaken so that it’s not compressing the joints and nerves and discs so much. That’s the fastest way to get long term resolution for back spasms. Question number five, is walking good for back spasms? Well, the answer is it depends.

Because if you’re walking in such a way that uses those back muscles excessively, no, it’s not good for you, it’s not good to go on long walks. Now walking is always recommended for people to have back problems. It’s one of the first things they say that if you can get to walking, go walk for exercise, and you may feel better doing it in the short term. In the short term, it’s okay.

But in the long term, I would not be walking like adding more distance adding more time, or trying to walk faster when you go walk because the faster you walk, the more muscles you’re going to recruit. And if these back muscles are dominance, already, you haven’t really worked on your abdominal muscles. And you’re not sure of how to use your abdominal muscles.

When you walk than walking is going to become a negative thing for you, it’s going to actually feed into the problem, it’s going to make your back spasms worse, because you’re going to make your back muscles work harder when you go walk. And if you know how to use your abdominals during walking, if you feel confident that your abdominals are getting stronger, and when you’re walking, you feel like you can use your abs than walking can be a good thing.

And it’s as simple as this just right now where you are stuck in your abs a little bit. But do it in such a way if you look at my back, where you don’t arc your back more or stick out your chest. When you tighten up your abs, you should subtly slouch you see my head and shoulders, my chest, all this comes down a bit and my abs are engaged and my back is kind of flattened out.

The more you arc your back, the more you use these back muscles. So you actually want to flatten out your back. And then do that while you’re standing. So when you’re standing up and you suck in your abs, you shouldn’t stick out your butt more on your back, you should flatten out your back and kind of tuck your butt under your hips and walk like this.

Now it should not be excessive like where it’s hurting you to do this where it’s a big strain. It should be a light to moderate contraction of your abs and even your glutes so that it takes a load off your back. And then you have to sustain that as you go walking. We teach this here in the clinic all the time of people that are suffering from back spasms. And they will always say I can’t walk as far as they usually walk because I get tired, not in pain, I’m tired.

And I always tell them, that’s a good thing. That means you’re forcing your body to exercise the way that it’s supposed to in the fact that you don’t have pain is excellent. Now it’s just a matter of you getting more fit in the right muscles. And then you’re going to be able to walk without pain, and it’s going to actually help your back spasm problem rather than contribute to it.

Question number six is how long does it take back spasms to go away? Well, this varies greatly in people. If you’ve had back spasms for just the first time recently, it usually goes away within hours or minutes and you might be sore in your back for days afterwards.

When back spasms happen. It’s sudden and it’s gripping. It’s very intense for moments, maybe minutes at most. And then it kind of gives way after the body realizes Oh, it’s okay to let this go. But you’re sore in your back for a long time. I mean, just think if you had to do a maximal contraction of every muscle in your arm and hold a 70 pound weight or 100 pound weight, some very heavy weight for your arm.

And then you let it go and you held it for two, three minutes, five minutes, your arm would be so sore the next day or the rest of the day after that. Same things happening in your back. If the root problem is not addressed, the back spasms usually come on again and again. It may be months before you get another back spasm about it.

Maybe Some people, by the time they come in and see me, they’re usually telling me, I get this every month or so I rest, I take some ibuprofen, I do some stretches. And then I get over it with a few days, and I’m back to normal. But then what happens is they get a back spasm that just leaves them in a lot of pain for weeks and weeks, and they don’t feel confident going to go walk when they pick up anything heavy, going to go do normal everyday activities.

That’s when we absolutely have to treat the root problem to make sure this issue goes away. And it goes back to those abdominal muscles, not fixing the root problem fixing the muscle imbalance can take anywhere from a few months to a year depending on how bad the muscle imbalances and how weak your abdominals and glutes and other muscles that contribute to your stability in your spine.

Our question number seven is how should I sleep if I’ve been suffering from back spasms? Well, similar to that position that it tells you to get in on your side with a nice bit of fetal position is a great position. Let’s say you had your back spasms in the evening, and you’re just trying to get some sleep so that you can go see a specialist or go get help the next day.

Trying to get in this position as best as possible is going to be comfortable on your back. Lining your back might not be very comfortable, you might even find that getting in a recliner is better for you. You basically have to get your body in kind of this position, whether you’re in a recliner or on your side.

The reason for that is when you tuck your knees in towards your chest, it offloads your back it puts some slack on your nerves, your like your sciatic nerves and the nerves that are running within your spine. And it’s just a more comfortable position to be in, you can always put a pillow between your knees when you’re lying on your side, if that’s most comfortable.

The idea is just get as comfortable as possible. But if you’re having recurring spasms, you might still spasm. And there might be a situation where you need to go to the hospital. At the wee hours of the night or whenever you need to get the help you if you just can’t sleep you need to get some medication to sleep that night.

But don’t rely on the pain medication for the long term. You’ve got to fix that underlying root problem. Question number eight is a massage good for back spasms? Yes, absolutely. Massages are fantastic. If you have access to a massage therapist in your area and you’ve been suffering from back spasms, go make an appointment and get to them as fast as possible. Usually, they’ll do wonders on relieving the tension in those tight back muscles.

Now, it’s not going to fix the long term problem. But it can buy you some excellent time. I think all day if you’re thinking of going to the ER for back spasms, you’re probably better off going to a chiropractor or massage therapist. Ideally, you can get to a manual therapist. That’s what I am. Though those three are probably the best people to see in a pinch.

If your back is just spasming uncontrollably, you’re going to get much longer relief from the hands on work that they can do versus going to go into injection or medication all of that can be beneficial. And that might be all you have access to. getting hands on work truly is going to buy you the most time in the short term. If you see a massage therapist for your back problems, be open and upfront with them.

They may not be comfortable dealing with you and they may refer you out to a specialist or the hospital. Make sure you find a massage therapist that feels comfortable massaging your back and they can get you in different positions that are comfortable for you so that you can relax during the massage session.

Question number nine is, is heat or cold better for back spasms, the jury’s out on this, there is no solid research evidence to show that ice is better or the heats better. There’s been a mantra or dogma that ice is great for acute injuries and heat is good for chronic injuries and certain body parts ice penetrates better and other body parts heat penetrates better. And what I’ve seen is usually people tell me that he feels better.

But I have had patients that come in and say ice is best on their back. That’s how they fall asleep. And they get the most comfortable. It varies tremendously. What I would advise you to do is try both see what works for you. Maybe neither will work for you and you just need to do nothing ice or heat is just not good for you.

I think that’s very much possibility. I see patients all the time telling me that they’d rather just not use anything and they feel better massaging it or doing other stuff. Go for it. There isn’t a clear cut way to figure out if you need ice, or if you need heat. You’ve just got to try it out experiment and see what works best for you.

Question number 10 is does ibuprofen help with back spasms? And I think this question is rooted in does any medication help with back spasms? It’s kind of the root question here. And I’ve seen Yes, people usually tell me that they can take ibuprofen and it takes the edge off. It’s not going to take away the pain completely.

In rare circumstances does it ever do that? Tylenol tends to be a lower level lower potency of pain medication, but that might be enough for you to get by to do the things that you need to do and If Tylenol and ibuprofen don’t do it are different versions of NSAIDs like there’s an approximant out there. There are different ones you can go look at in the store, you might have them in your medicine cabinet as well. Pain creams is another one like, like your BEN gay, icy hot, Tiger Balm.

There’s all kinds of of analgesic lotions or creams that you can use pink creams, basically, that may also provide some benefits, but they’re not going to solve the problem. They’re just short term. They’re just trying to get you through the night, or trying to get you through the day so that you can work on the long term problem.

Question number 11. Is, is it better to sit or to lie down? If you’re dealing with back spasms, the answer to this is get comfortable, it doesn’t matter. If you feel like you need to sit down and sit down. If you feel like you need to lie down and lie down.

Usually people just need to change positions because of the gripping sensation, that feeling of your back muscles. Just constantly changing positions in every minute or two. changing positions tends to be most beneficial. Some people do get really comfortable sitting down in their favorite chair, the recliner, some people just need to stay in bed. There isn’t a clear cut way much like the ice and heat topic.

You got to find what works best for you. And it’s okay if you say, You know what I was comfortable on the recliner, but I need to go lie down or I was comfortable lying down. But I need to go to the recliner. And you may have a loved one helping you out and telling you go lay down Go lay down and go sit down and go sit down. And you might need to change positions or get out just let them know I need I’m uncomfortable now.

I’m going to go sit in the recliner. I’ve been lying down too long, or I’m uncomfortable the recliner, I’m going to go light on I’ve been sitting too long. Maybe you need to stand up and move that is very much possibility. Usually with these problems, you need to get some movement consistently in that one position is comfortable for forever for a long time.

Question number 12 is what kind of doctor should I see for my back spasms. As I alluded to already a manual therapist, that’s what I am, I’m a physical therapist who’s got advanced training and a subspecialty. In manual therapy, that’s going to be the best person to see for back spasms, a next best would be a chiropractor, they tend to do really, really good at loosening up joints that are stuck in the spine that could be leading to those muscle spasms.

And then after that a massage therapist will do great shoot a combination of all of them. If you can do it would not be a bad idea either. If you’re certain that it’s back spasms. Now a male therapist can screen you out and tell you there’s other conditions happening at the same time as your back spasm.

Like you might have a disc herniation, or you might have sciatica. And you can begin to get those problems dealt with. And they’ll also give you recommendations if you ask on if you should see a chiropractor in addition to working with your male therapist, or if you should go to a massage therapist, you know fourth after those three providers, those three health care specialists, then I would go see a physician for this problem.

Physicians just aren’t well trained to help you recover from this problem in the long term. And usually they’re just offering you pain medications, which you can get over the counter. If you need high power pain medications, then you should go to the physician or go to the ER, go see a doctor that can give you an injection or muscle relaxers so that you can get some help from medicine. Sometimes it is necessary.

I have seen people with back spasms in my clinic as male therapists and they’re just so uncontrollable, I can’t get them into the positions that I need to do the techniques so they can so I tell them you need to go get injection you need to go get some high-powered medication so that your pain is dulled down, and then I can do my work. But it’s always done with the intent of not doing those medications for the long term.

It’s just a short term deal so that you can get the painter under control and we can work on the long term problem. And massage therapist is great at relaxing the muscles, but they’re not really well trained in moving joints or exercises and chiropractors are really great at moving the joints, but they tend to not have a lot of training and work in the muscles and doing exercises.

Manual therapists are truly the best prepared because we can our training as physical therapists helps us to give you the right exercises to work on your own to fix the root problem. And then we’ve got the hands on training that’s very similar to what chiropractors go through but a little bit different osteopathic actually, depending on the training that they get, and they can pop the joints loose, they can free up all the muscles, they’ve got massage therapist training, oftentimes, they’re not all equal.

So you can’t just count on one male therapist being exactly like the other. You’ve got to do your research you might have to try them out you might have to talk to them to see what works best for you. Now if you’re looking for an exercise program to start working on the root problem that’s leading to your back spasms I’ve got a program called the 28 Day Back Health And Wellness Boost Program.

This program is designed at fixing that root problem getting those abdominal muscles strong while avoiding strengthening the back muscles and is also help with getting the glutes right on how to walk properly.

How to prevent this problem from getting worse over time, because it sets you up for things like back arthritis disc herniations lumbar stenosis and many other back problems that you don’t want to have and if you’ve been having back spasms and if they keep happening if they keep recurring because you’re not treating the root problem, it eventually sets up that back arthritis that disc herniation is a degenerative disc disease, all the bad stuff that you don’t want to get when you’re in your older years of life.

You can find out more details about that program in the description below. Thanks so much for watching. I hope this was helpful for you. Drop a comment let us know if this helped you out and I’ll see you in the next video. Bye