Yesterday morning early on I bent over to scoop up our tiny new puppy and, uh-oh, quick twinge up the right side of the back. It was right where I've been sore for the two and a half weeks since my last back spasm, so I knew what was coming.
Later in the day I was still sore but not really having spasms, hoping the previous day's chiropractic adjustment and light walking and stretching had helped. Nope-around lunchtime I bumped into a chair with my right hip and felt another twinge. Then a few minutes later I bent down to get something under the kitchen sink, moved the garbage can which wasn't even full and BAM full on, knee buckling back spasm again.
AGH. What is going on? I slowly breathed through the spasm, gently resumed moving around and finished the tasks I had to complete with some help from one of our daughters. I then went and laid down on a heating pad for about 15 minutes. When I went back to work, I was conscientious to sit in a firm backed chair or stand with good posture for a few hours. I also took it easy the rest of the day, including more sessions sitting in straight backed chairs or laying flat with my legs either extended or bent at a 90 degree angle. Well, all that worked-while sore this morning, it is nowhere near as bad as most days after spasms. Hopefully I'm getting on top of this. My activities over the past few days shouldn't have been this traumatic, so I looked for other causes.
One is likely my diet and caffeine intake. I've probably allowed myself to be a little dehydrated while recovering from the previous spasms and kept my caffeine intake as high or higher than usual. Caffeine can be of some value in pain treatment-many headache pills and other analgesics contain small amounts of caffeine to enhance effectiveness, but too much caffeine is widely mentioned negatively when having back spasms. I'm going to limit my coffee and other caffeine sources for the next few days while increasing my water consumption. The same sites mention the usual supplements too: Vitamin B6, potassium, magnesium and calcium are all likely needed too.
So to sum up, holistic, non drug treatments I'm implementing better late than never to support back spasm recovery:
Increase water consumption throughout the day
Decrease caffeine from coffee and food sources
Increase fresh fruits and vegetables and calcium sources (milk, cheese, hmm ICE CREAM?)
Continue supplementation
Increase stretching to 80-90% range of motion and relaxation exercises
Hopefully on the back side of this (no pun intended!)
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