Neck Pain, Back Pain and Sciatica - Understanding and Treating Ankylosing Spondylitis

Ankylosing spondylitis is an arthritic condition that affects the spine and is also characterized by sacroiliac joint involvement, peripheral inflammatory arthropathy, and an absence of the rheumatoid factor. Symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis include neck pain, back pain, and sciatic nerve pain. Individuals with this condition experience the destruction of the cartilage and bone resulting in fibrous and bony ankylosing or fusing of the spine, pelvis, ribs, and other joints of the body. Patients with ankylosing spondylitis typically exhibit what is referred to as a stiff or "poker spine." Mobility of the spine usually is decreased symmetrically, meaning on both sides, but does seem to improve with exercise. The pain associated with this condition may range from mild to chronic and acute and has often been referred to as insidious. The pain associated with ankylosing spondylitis is often described as morning stiffness. Ankylosing spondylitis is slightly more prevalent in men and symptoms in men are generally more severe. Native American populations are most affected, although the reasons are unclear. Depending on the severity of the disease, posture may become affected. Ultimately, the condition may result in total disability.

Ankylosing spondylitis is often responsible for significant changes in the spine and the pelvis, particularly the sacroiliac joint, that joint between the pelvis (hips) and the sacrum (tailbone), as mentioned above. In skeletal samples, the vertebrae are often visibly fused over significant portions of the spine from the cervical (neck) to the base of the lumbar region or curvature (low back). The fusions in this condition are often bony with several vertebrae locked into place, thus the name ankylosing spondylitis. Because the spine, and often the sacroiliac joint become fused, mobility is restricted, bending becomes a problem if not impossible, and side to side motion is restricted. It was once believed that an individual diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis was faced with a life without prospects, this no longer needs to be the case. Given the proper treatment strategy individuals may lead a long and productive life.

In addition to ankylosing of the spine, ankylosing spondylitis may cause significant changes, and varying degrees of pain, at other areas of the body, as well. While bony fusions of the vertebrae and sacroiliac joint are the most common, fusions of the ribs to vertebrae and the sternum (breastbone) are not uncommon and may cause difficulties expanding the chest and breathing. Additionally, tendons and ligaments that attach themselves to or come into contact with bone may also become inflamed and painful. Tendonitis may be expressed at any point in the body and is often evident in the Achilles tendon, causing a significant amount of heel pain.

Because ankylosing spondylitis is a systemic disease, symptoms may present themselves anywhere in the body. It is not uncommon for people suffering from ankylosing spondylitis to have elevated sedimentation rates, fevers, fatigue, loss of appetite, eye irritation, and even heart and lung disease. The condition itself may be difficult to diagnose, as the cause is yet unknown and no cure is available. An individual suffering from ankylosing spondylitis, in its worst expression, may endure debilitating neck pain, back pain, and sciatic nerve pain along with stiffness and/or immobility over vast areas of the spine, hips, and even the peripheral joints.

While there is no known cure for ankylosing spondylitis, there are treatments available to alleviate, and in some cases eliminate, the pain and discomfort. Programs have been developed to improve flexibility and function. Ankylosing spondylitis is progressive but it is possible, through exercise and stretching, to improve and even maintain good posture, preventing the stooped-over appearance and deformity, allowing individuals to conduct a relatively normal amount of daily activity and/or activities. And, a daily exercise program, one that includes stretching, deep breathing exercises, and even swimming will help individuals minimize many of the most debilitating consequences of the disease, long term. Inactivity should never be advised or prescribed, as it will only hasten the worst possible consequences of the condition and exacerbate the immobility, neck pain, back pain and sciatica often associated with the condition.

Lower Back Pain Exercises - Banish The Pain For Good

Lower back pain exercises - low back discomfort is incredibly common among people of both sexes (over 80% of us suffer from it), but women especially tend to experience lower back pain thanks to pregnancy, carrying around groceries and kids, plus the ranges of motion required by the different tasks they perform every day.

In order to deal with low back injury, it is important to do stretching and strengthening exercises to help find severe back pain relief and prevent further symptoms.

There are two reasons lower back pain exercises are the best way to relieve and prevent lower back pain:

1. Exercise helps to strengthen and increase the flexibility of the low back muscles, meaning that the muscles are better able to handle the movements made in the average day.


2. Exercise removes some of the tension from the low back muscles, and the stretches that accompany an exercise program helps to loosen up the muscles

If you are experiencing lower back pain, your first line of treatment should definitely be to do lower back pain exercises to help reduce the pain as well as prevent it from returning. Not only do strengthening and stretching exercises help keep your low back disorder from recurring, but they help speed recovery from any backache you may already have.

As always, consult your family doctor before you start any new program of low back pain exercises.

There are a number of strengthening exercises that you can do, and each one has its specific benefits for your low back. In only 15 minutes a day, these treatments are beneficial to recover from and prevent future injury. The health benefits go well beyond any investment of time or effort:

• Abdominal Crunches are great low back pain exercises to help strengthen your core muscles. They help to strengthen and stretch your lower back muscles as much as they do your abdominal muscles. Abdominal support is more important for improved back fitness than most of us realize.


• Wall Squats are performed by pretending to sit with your back against the wall and your legs pushing you against the wall to support your weight. This exercise helps to work out your lower back and legs, giving them the strength needed to support your low back.


• By raising your leg straight out in front of you and holding it there for 10 seconds, you are working out your upper hamstrings and lower back. You are also stretching your back and legs, and alternating legs ensures that both sides of your body get a thorough workout. This is particularly good as one of the lower back pain exercises you should do on a daily basis.


• Pull a knee in to your chest as a stretch to loosen up the muscles in your hamstring and keep your lower back flexible. Alternate knees to loosen up both sides, and make sure to pull the leg tightly and stand straight for the most effective stretch.


• Place your feet together and slowly stretch out over your legs and straight down, hold for 15 to 30 seconds. Be gentle, don't bounce up and down. Just let the stretch happen. This will stretch the lower back muscles and help to improve and straighten your vertebra.


• Get down on your hands and knees, and extend an arm straight forward. Extend the opposite leg straight backward, and keep your head steady. Alternate legs. This exercise is perfect to stretch and strengthen the lower back, and will help you build strength and regain mobility.


• Lie on your back, knees bent to place your feet flat on the floor. Place your hands at your side and lift your rear end and hips off the floor with your back muscles. Roll as high onto your shoulders as possible, and hold for 10 to 15 seconds.


• Lie on your back and bend your knees to place your feet flat on the floor. Place your hands on the floor beneath your shoulders and use your hands and knees to lift your body off the floor to form a table shape. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds before going down to the floor.

If you've been suffering from any sort of chronic or acute low back injury, these lower back pain exercises can help you heal and finally find the relief you've been looking for!

Cure For Lower Back Pain - How You Can Go Medieval on Your Pain and Outmaneuver it Today!

The most common reason why lower back pain thrives is due to fact that many people ignore it until it is too late. I sincerely hope that this is not the case for you because you can actually access a fantastic cure for lower back pain today if you act quickly.

Lower back pain can be caused by many things. A few of these include; automobile injury to the back, a tensed muscle, a pinched sciatic nerve which results due to the inflammation of surrounding muscles, menstrual cramps, fibroid tumors, endometriosis, osteoporosis or osteoarthritis, excess weight, lack of exercise, infections, slipped discs, smoking, and so on.

So now that we know what the causes might be, how do we get rid of the pain already? Well, read on...

You can start by performing low impact exercise routines particularly yoga. Yoga is often mistaken to be only useful as a calming exercise; this is not the case at all. Performing yoga routines can help to relieve lower back pain and strengthen your bones and your spine. If you achieve these, then your spine and bones will become more pliant and more able to resist stress.

Did I hear you say; "but yoga is not medieval?" Well, I hope I did not because you can bet your farm on the fact that it is. And then there is more...

Calcium - "For strong bones and teeth" and also for strengthening your cartilage too. Make sure that you incorporate a lot of calcium into your daily diet so that you are fortified enough to counteract the pain.

And now for the real medieval stuff: Herbs...

If you think that herbs are new, then you really have another "think" coming. Herbs have been around since the Garden of Eden. For those who do not know what the Garden of Eden is (or where it is at), then allow me to state the previous statement in another way: Herbs have been around since the beginning of time...

They have been proven to be very effective in curing a lot of conditions and ailments since then so much so that they have formed the base compounds of many of today's effective drugs.

To cure lower back pain, you might want to opt for the following herbs; arthcare oil, lemon, turpentine Oil, potato, zanthoxylum clava herculis, German chamomile, burdock, devil's claw, etcetera.

Herbs work as a temporary remedy for this condition, but you need to access a permanent cure right? If so, you need to read on to the next page where you will get access an innovative cure which thousands of former back pain sufferers used to stop their pain completely once and for all. Read on...

FACT: Most conventional treatments for back trouble only work as a temporary band aid solution; they all fail to work in the long run!

The Three Worst Stretches For Back Pain

Stretching is one of the most commonly used methods to reduce back pain. Unfortunately, most stretches for lower back pain can cause more harm than good.

The lower back is one of the most misunderstood areas of the human body, perhaps only second in that category to the brain. Many so-called treatments completely ignore the functional anatomy of the lower back. Due to this misunderstanding, there are three stretches for back pain that are frequently recommended but can actually increase your pain when performed over time.

The number one offender is the lower back rotational stretch. This is the stretch that involves laying down on your back and twisting your legs in either direction while holding your shoulder blades against the ground.

The truth is that the lumbar vertebrae are not built for rotation. If you have seen one of these vertebrae in person before, you would notice that the lumbar vertebrae are much bigger than their thoracic and cervical counterparts. As a result, the lumbar vertebrae do not have much capacity for rotation.

In fact, each lumbar vertebra can normally only rotate by a few degrees (usually 1 to 3), while each thoracic vertebra can rotate almost 10 degrees.

As a result, most of our spine's rotational capacity stems from the middle and upper spine, not the lower back. Attempting to get more rotation from the lumbar spine by performing the rotational stretch is a recipe for more pain over time rather than relief. The expression "forcing a square peg into a round hole" fits perfectly here.

The reason this stretch (and the next stretch) remain popular is due to the fact that they feel good while you are performing them. Picking a scab also feels good, but does not help the tissue heal! The relief from these stretches is temporary and the injury is perpetuated. This "feel good" mentality is a trap; just because something feels good does not make it healthy. Extra rotational capacity at the spine only leads to a higher risk of injury.

The next common but dangerous stretch is "knee to chest" stretch. This stretch for the lower back involves laying down on your back and pulling your knees to your chest. This stretch invokes something known as the "stretch reflex"; this forces the stretched muscle to relax and prevents it from contracting properly for about 20 minutes. This also provides a pain-relief effect.

The net result is that your lower back muscles can no longer contract effectively (reducing spinal stability) and the area is numbed (making it hard to tell if you are injuring yourself). Due to the lowered stability and sense of pain, it is easy to injury your lower back during this 20 minute refractory period. Additionally, once this reflex wears off, the person performing the stretching is back in pain and none the better for it.

The final stretch is the "toe-touch" stretch, which involves bending forward and trying to touch your toes. This stretch can cause further injury because the spine is in its most susceptible position to injury when it is flexed. Additionally, tight hamstrings are often used by the brain to splint the spine and prevent further injury. It is not always appropriate or effective to stretch a muscle just because it is tight.

Back Pain Symptoms - First Look For The Underlying Cause Of The Problem

Back pain is a symptom of a body that's out of alignment. It's a symptom that weak and tight muscles somewhere in your body have allowed those bones to move out of alignment.

The pain is telling people to do something to get the bones in their lower back into better alignment.

What most people are not aware of is the principle that says, 'The cause of the pain is rarely at the site where it's painful.'

Their therapist probably hasn't heard of this principle either. You'll know this is the case if the therapist starts heating, rubbing, crunching or vibrating the spot where it hurts.

So if back pain is a symptom of a body that's out of alignment what is it that's caused the bones of the lower back to move out of alignment?

It's usually tight muscles attached you your pelvis - front, back and sides. If they're tight they'll pull the pelvis down and back and cause it to twist. If that's the case people won't be able to sit up straight with a nice hollow in their lumber spine.

When the pelvis moves out of alignment, the bones up above also move out of alignment. The natural 'S' shaped curve of the spine will have turned into a 'C' shape.

The usual cause of this happening is sitting down all day in the 'slump dog' position and not having a flexibility training program to loosen off the calf, hamstring and buttock muscles.

Flexibility is the first problem.

The second contributing factor is a lack of overall body strength. How can you expect the bones of your back to stay in alignment if the muscles supporting those bones are weak? Well you can't.

I recently had a bloke come to see me with lower back pain. He'd done the rounds and spent thousands of dollars on therapists who thought the cause of his problem was in his lower back. They didn't understand that his lower back pain symptoms were caused by weak and tight muscles attached to his pelvis.

No-none had checked to see which muscles were tight and no-one had checked to see how strong he was.

He could hardly do a situp. He could hardly do a pressup. He'd never done a Superman back arch or a squat. He didn't have a strength training program at the gym.

It beggars belief that no-one had made an effort to search for the underlying cause of his pain. Maybe it's too simple to ask people to see if they can sit up straight in a few simple yoga-type postures or watch to see if they can do the most popular strength exercises.

It just reinforces my belief that it's a waste of time going to see anyone who doesn't tell you the likely cause of your problem and/or doesn't give you a good suite of strength and flexibility exercises to restore poor function to good. Just treat any therapy as complementary health care. The primary health care for joint and muscle pain is the strength and flexibility exercises you do yourself.

In a nutshell the symptoms of back pain are weak and tight muscles somewhere in your body. Often it's tight and weak muscles right throughout your body.

In the meantime stay tuned highly tuned and embark on a regular and systematic strength and flexibility training program. Any therapy on top of that will speed up the rehab process.

Get Rid of Lower Back Pain Via Simple Exercises

Everyday Back Relief Exercises

Depending up on the severity and type of your back-pain, few low and simple impact back-pain workouts could be simply what are needed to offer that much desirable back pain aid as well as get you reverse on your legs again. What type of exercises will be the best for one is depend up on the kind of pain people are suffering from, but less impact workouts will help.

Try To Do Just Anything:

The best workout is the one that you will do, whether it is as simple as just walking on treadmill at home or going to the gym, covering a tour to the neighborhood, doing floor exercises, and lifting barbells. Whatever you select, do it sincerely and sensibly along with a personal and balanced program which suits your requirements.

Take activity intervals during the daytime. Several 10 minutes exercise breaks all through the daytime can be very beneficial in comparison to longer workout.

Try To Play:

What you should do is play different sport games like tennis, and volleyball. Racquetball as well as other active games adds up as exercise, they are fun! Back exercises are very easy to do and one can do them from wherever they are. Warm up and wind down. Precede as well as follow exercises with some slow, good stretches, and low level adaptation of the activities to rehearse as well as calm down the muscle used. Back pain exercises are no more a problem now. It is all fun!

Lower Back Pain Exercises That Work

Have you ever experienced lower back pain? Of course you have, and probably more than once. Most people do. A lot of people deal with a variety of back pains throughout their lives, and suffer the consequences accordingly. They don't have to however. There are some back pain exercises you can do to reduce the level of pain in your back. So here are some lower back pain exercises that work

A simple thing like stretching is something that can do wonders to reducing back pain. The spinal column and its muscles, tendons and ligaments are made to move, so reduced motion in the back can cause pain. Stretching all the different muscles helps gain and maintain greater flexibility in the back.

Stretching the neck and shoulders can help relieve your back pain. The flexion and lateral flexion stretches are great for this. With the flexion stretch, sit or stand and gently bend the head forward while bringing the chin towards the chest. With the lateral flexion stretch, bend the neck to one side and touch your ear to your shoulder and the switch to the other side.

Stretching the back is an obvious thing to do, and here are a few stretches you can perform. With the back flexion stretch, lie on your back and pull both knees to the chest while simultaneously flexing the head forward. With the knee to chest stretch, lie on your back with your knees bent and heels on the floor, place both hands behind one knee and bring it to the chest.

Stretching the hips and gluteus muscles support the lower back where most back pain is located. Stretching these is essential to maintaining flexibility in the back. For stretching your hips, stand and place your feet shoulder width apart, take a half step back with the right foot and bend your left knee while shifting weight to the right hip. Repeat on the other side. You need to do stretches of the piriformis muscle that runs through the buttocks and often contributes to the pain. To stretch this muscle, lie on your back and cross one leg over the other and pull your knee to the chest.

These few stretches are excellent in reducing back spasms, and should be done every day. It'll take a few days for the healing to start up, so make sure you work at it. Everything takes time so take things delicately. It's possible to go from one extreme to another, no exercises or too much too fast. Please don't over stretch anything because that too can cause even more back stress. Do these stretches daily, and the right way, and it will be beneficial to your back. When you have reduced or eliminated your back pain, you will feel generally better and certainly less stressed.