Too much rest will make your pain worse.
Movement nourishes and repairs the discs, muscles, ligaments, and joints in your spine. Active exercise also helps incorporate the needed nutrients into and around the disc spaces throughout your spine.
While pain makes it hard to exercise enough, lack of exercise can worsen the pain by leading to stiffness, weakness, and deconditioning. In the case of disc-related pain, lack of exercise will deprive the injured disc of the nutrition it needs and this can lead to further degeneration and pain.
Additionally, exercise and activity are needed to help reduce inflammation that naturally occurs in the tissues surrounding an injured disc. This swelling can further irritate nerves that are already affected by the highly inflammatory herniated disc material.
Stretching, strengthening, and aerobic conditioning exercises are all important:
It may take weeks or months of stretching, but you will find that the increase in your range of motion can lead to sustained pain relief.
Stretching your hamstrings regularly is essential therapy for lower back pain and sciatica. If an episode of low back pain has lasted two weeks or more, a strengthening program helps with long-term recovery. Typical programs may include McKenzie exercises, lumbar stabilization training, and/or other prescribed exercises.
Most doctors and physical therapists will tell you that their patients who are aerobically conditioned tend to have less back pain and sciatica. Low impact aerobic exercise brings nutrients to injured structures in the back and helps them heal. Walking or biking can be effective forms of low impact exercise, as can working out on an elliptical machine. If you are in severe pain, water therapy is an option that can provide multiple therapeutic and conditioning benefits with less stress.
This article was originally posted on SpineHealth.com.
