Holistic Therapy for Chronic Lower Back Pain, Does it Work? – Part 2
- Brainz Magazine
- 14 hours ago
- 15 min read
Kicki Hjortmarker is known for her broad knowledge and extensive experience working with the human body and mind to heal injuries and chronic pain conditions. She is the founder of Swedish Balance, dedicated to help people live a balanced life pain-free.
Chronic lower back pain can have a multitude of causes, both physical and emotional. In this article, we delve into the role of self-awareness and holistic treatments like fascia release, strengthening exercises, and diet adjustments to help alleviate pain. Whether through mindfulness, specific exercises, or making lifestyle changes, managing back pain requires a comprehensive approach. Start your healing journey with these practical tips and insights.
Learning from the inside-out
I suggest that you take a deep dive into your internal self!
Since I have learnt tremendously much about the body and back pain through my injuries, bodily traumas, hardships, and long-term healing process, I know that you can do it too!
But you need to have the desire and stamina to do so, and then a little help on the way. Reading this article is a great step in the process!
To highlight the importance of going inside, I’ll revisit my story, I experienced lower back pain already at age 15. I was on the Swedish National Team in Rhythmic Sports Gymnastics.
The tension and pain in my back was getting worse throughout the years of training and competing. The first time my back locked up so badly that I couldn’t move, I assumed that it was merely a physical thing, It was the one-sided training!
And that was probably a huge reason for it, but if it was the only reason, wouldn’t everyone on my team have lower back pain? We all did the same kind of movements and exercises after all.
Looking back at it, I think the stress to stay on the team had a huge impact.
As I was a maturing teenager going through puberty, I also gained some weight, which I desperately tried to reverse, and my diet became very poor.
Back then, I didn’t know how stress hormones could produce physiological changes.
I didn’t know why I gained weight, and I didn’t know how to lose weight without starving myself. So, I starved myself, lost a lot of weight during the summer, just to gain it all back a few months later.
Losing and gaining weight became an unhealthy cycle for years to come. The back pain persisted and got worse throughout this time.
Treatments such as chiropractic and massage therapy only helped temporarily.
It wasn’t until it became my mission to become perfectly healthy that I made huge leaps in the healing process. I dove deep inside!
I started meditating. I practiced letting go of tension before it became painful. I became aware of how different foods made me feel and how different situations made me feel. I became aware of my breathing, my emotions, feelings, tension patterns, and what would set a painful episode off. I became aware of how I was walking, standing, sitting, and sleeping. I became aware of which clothes and shoes would make me more comfortable. I became aware of how the presence of different people made me feel. I became aware of my impact on people around me.
So, back pain can have both internal and external causes, but when is my back pain going away?
You might have had many treatments already, and maybe you’ve tried many different kinds. Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Myofascial Release, Neuromuscular Therapy, Physical Therapy, but the pain is still there: Why?
The reasons can be multitude. And, before giving an arbitrary answer to when your back pain is going away, some things need to be discussed.
First of all, you need to understand that where you feel back pain, where you are hurting the most, is rarely where it all started, and it’s rarely where you need most of the work done.
The pain that you are feeling in a specific area is often located where there is weakness. Commonly, there is an imbalance in muscular tissues that leads to muscles pulling your spine, vertebrae, ribs, or joints out of alignment.
If this is your case, then the pain won’t go away until the alignment has been addressed.
Will chiropractic treatments help?
Now you might think that you need to see a chiropractor, because chiropractors manipulate bones. Or, maybe you’ve tried chiropractic treatments, and it hasn’t lasted, and it simply hasn’t worked for you.
The reason for this is likely because the treatment was too invasive and the body “rebelled” against it by holding onto the tension, protecting the body and injury site, instead of releasing the trauma. Another reason that it didn’t help you can be that the muscular tissues, fascia, or organs held tension/trauma, and weren’t addressed in the treatment.
On the other hand, if you feel that Chiropractic treatments help you, then definitely go ahead and do it! Chiropractors work very differently, and you might just need to find the right one for you. Commonly, several different kinds of treatments and approaches are needed to resolve chronic pain conditions. How fast or slowly your pain is going away has to do with how severe the injury is, what kind of treatments you are choosing, how skilled the therapist is, and mostly with how diligent you are with recommended exercises.
Diet, self-awareness, thoughts, feelings, hydration, and appropriate amount of rest is equally important.
The role of organs and fascia
If your kidney-energy is compromised, because you have bad sleeping habits, experience a lot of stress, don’t drink enough water, or you drink too much water, etc., then you might experience lower back pain.
As soon as you make changes to these habits, you can potentially notice a difference for the better very fast- within a few days, a week or two.
Fascia is also an important organ to be considered. If it is restricted due to something that started as a minor injury so small that you don’t even remember it, it may still cause you major problems. For example, you twisted your ankle sometime ago, which caused your fascia to thicken.
A thickening of the fascia can cause restrictions and less mobility as it tightens around an injured area. It thickens in the area in order to stabilize the foot and the ankle. This may not work in your favor because the restriction that occurred due to the injury can affect the whole body.
Think of fascia as a protective thin sheet covering everything in your body, Imagine a bed sheet, and that you tie a knot at one end of the bed. You will then see creases going towards the other end of the bed.
The same thing applies in your body. The fascia (sheet) has a “knot” at one end of your body, for example, in your calf. This “pull” in the fascia can give a ripple effect all the way up to your hamstrings, shoulders, neck, or head. If restrictions in the fascia aren’t addressed, it can take you years or a lifetime to heal your back pain. Once again, it is crucial to have a holistic perspective when treating chronic back pain.
Disc issues
If there are disc issues, structural issues, spinal stenosis, etc., the patient will usually get relief from work around the area of the trauma as blood flow to the injury site increases and inflammation and spasms decrease. The pain from a bulging disc often subsides within 2-6 weeks. Pain caused by a herniated disc often subsides within 4-6 weeks, but it can take 6-12 months for full structural healing of the disc. During this time, the pain and speed of recovery can be managed with manual therapies and bodywork such as Neuromuscular Massage, Meditation and relaxation, Myofascial Release, Reiki, and Craniosacral therapy.
Back pain due to imbalances. Why are there imbalances in the first place?
The imbalances are often there because you are doing something repetitively every day, overusing some tissues, and underusing others.
Other times, it might have started with an accident, a blow to the body, stress, or toxins. Some muscle groups are being overused, and with overuse, they get fatigued. Even if you’re very active and you use your muscles a lot, they don’t necessarily get stronger. Muscles can become both tight and weak.
Some of my clients who have incredibly tight gluteus say, “But isn’t it good to have gluteus like rocks? Isn’t it good to have a tight butt?” And then they smile! No!
Gluteus-like rocks can give more problems than benefits.
Strong glutes are important in conquering chronic lower back pain, but as mentioned earlier, muscles can be both tight and weak, and thereby cause a tremendous amount of pain.
For example, if you have overdone it at the gym, trained the gluteus and hamstrings hard, then of course these muscle groups can be strong, but at the same time they can be the cause of lower back pain.
A bodyworker or massage therapist can release these muscles, and the back pain can go away, and it might never become chronic.
But, if you keep doing this over and over, without balancing out the training with massages/ bodywork and by making sure hip-flexors, quads, adductors, abductors, and abdominals are strong and strengthened equally, then there might be a problem, and the lower back pain will potentially develop into a chronic pain situation.
Why is my back pain not going away after a massage?
Have you had a massage in order to fix your back pain, but it didn’t work? Did you explain to your therapist where it hurt, and did you ask them to focus on that area? Or, did the therapist decide to really grind it in that one painful area?
I come across people with chronic lower back pain, frozen shoulders, hip pain, and neck pain, and they ask me to just work on their neck, back, hips, or shoulders.
Usually this gives little results. In the best-case scenario, they feel a whole lot better right afterwards, but after a few days or a week later, they experience the same kind of pain as before the treatment.
The pain didn’t go away after the massage because the body functions as a unit. You can’t separate the neck pain from your lower back, or from your tension in your calves.
Remember that when you’re walking, lifting a box, running, etc., your whole body is involved!
Maybe you’ve heard that your fascia might be part of your problem. As mentioned earlier, fascia is a tissue with no ending and no beginning throughout your whole body. Hence, restriction in one part of the body can lead to pain in another part of the body.
Fascia is one system, a network of connective tissue, and if it is injured in one location of the body, it can give you ripple effects pretty much anywhere.
So, if you ask your massage therapist to only work your back if you have back pain, but the restriction originates somewhere else, you’re out of luck. The back pain will persist!
Also, if you continue to do the exact same things and movements, that were the cause of the pain in the first place, that you did before the massage treatment, your muscles will start to do the exact same thing as they did before the treatment and they will pull you out of balance again, It can be enough that you get back to your desk job on Monday morning and you sit in the position that unknowingly contributed to your pain.
What sitting does to your back
People with a desk job who don’t have a habit to exercise, tend to develop lower back pain over time. As they sit a lot, the gluteus muscles aren’t being used enough. Instead, the hip flexors work too hard and get too tight, often with a pelvic tilt. Back muscles get imbalanced with pain and strain as a result. In this case, a massage treatment can help in the moment, but for long-term pain relief, a strengthening program such as Pilates is needed.
Hip flexors, gluteus, adductors, psoas, illiacus, and hamstrings’ role in a shorter stride and low back pain
I frequently see people who have gotten a shorter stride throughout the years.
They complain about lower back pain, shoulder pain, or neck pain, where lower back pain is the most common. What they all have in common is a lack of muscle mass in the gluteus.
The strength is gone!
The adductors (inner thighs) now try to stabilize the leg in the absence of gluteal strength. Usually, it’s more obvious on one side than the other. Hip flexors, adductors, and hamstrings tend to be extremely tight in this situation. Therefore, it’s impossible to take a proper stride.
Commonly, the psoas is involved as well, pulling on the trunk, as it has a role as a flexor.
The illiacus is part of the “Illio-psoas”. It covers each pelvic bone on the inside. The psoas runs along it. If the illiacus is too tight, it will pull on your SI-Joint (Sacroiliac-joint), which is the very lowest part of the spine with 5 fused vertebrae just above your tailbone, and it can also cause low back pain.
When I’m working with these people and stretch their legs sideways, the leg will barely move 20 degrees. Since gluteus-medius on the side of the pelvis acts as a major stabilizer when standing and walking, lower back pain tends to be a result if it is not strong enough. Other muscle groups will compensate for the weakness and try to do all of the job as stabilizers. I have found that low back pain will diminish significantly when adductors, psoas, illiacus, and hamstrings are released and relaxed. But, they’re not going to stay relaxed unless other muscle groups do their job.
Below are 5 practical tips to keep you going on your self-help journey
1. Build your body/mind awareness
Become more self-aware. Ask yourself: When do you tense up? When do you feel stress in your body? Where do you feel the stress? What does the stress feel like?
Pay attention to how you breathe.
Look in the mirror: Are you raising your shoulders as you inhale? When you sit, do you tense your gluteus, your neck, or your abdomen? Do you have your feet on the floor, do you cross your legs, or do you feel less tension in the body if you sit cross-legged/Indian style/Yoga style? Do you feel stressed or relaxed after a meal? Do you feel better or worse if you drink more water throughout the day? What makes you feel stressed? Can you eliminate the trigger? Can you look at the trigger from a different perspective? Can you change the way you react to it?
To slow your breath and nervous system down, inhale on a 4 count and make the exhale longer on a 6-7 count.
2. Tools
Tools can be very helpful in releasing tension and pain on your own. Foam Roller and the Thera-cane are tools that have helped myself greatly throughout the years. You can easily find both online, at most gyms, or in sports specialty stores.
However, to use the Thera-cane efficiently is a bit of a learning curve. It might be worth it, though, as you can target difficult-to-reach areas, whereas it would be almost impossible to reach the same areas with the foam roller, therapy balls, or with your bare hands.
Therapy balls can be more useful than a foam roller as it is easier to pinpoint a specific tension area and trigger points.
The foam roller is great to cover your whole body. As long as you can get down on the floor, you can roll any part of your body on the foam roller, but avoid inflamed areas. The foam roller also works great for your IT bands.
is a taught fibrous band made up of thick fascia. It originates on the side of your pelvic bone and inserts on the lateral side just below the knee.
It’s common that a too-tight IT band gives you knee pain on the outside of the knee. This tension can also refer to pain in your lower back, as it is part of a fascia tension pattern.
When you work on trigger points, they are discrete and focal on your own. Be aware that trigger points need static pressure to release. That means that it is better to lie down or sit down on a ball, instead of rolling around on one.
If a trigger point won’t release as you’re working on it, try to lighten up on the pressure. Sometimes trigger points won’t release if you’re pressing too hard, but the opposite can also be true. Other times, the trigger point needs a different angle than the angle you’re working from in order to release.
In some cases, you can use traction devices. This can work really well when you need to create more space in the spine. But, please be careful with this!
If you have bulging and herniated discs, you do not want to hang upside-down in a traction device. This can drastically increase inflammation, prolong the pain, and make it worse.
If you experience neck pain, there are many traction devices that can feel good to use. Choose one that you can keep on the floor or another hard flat surface, and on which you can gently put your head down and relax.
The gentler and slower you use a traction device, the better. You want to make sure the tissues and your body feel safe to relax, release, and let go of tension!
Supportive tapes and braces are something you can use for a short period of time. If you use it too often or for too long, the risk is that muscles will atrophy, and in the long run, you will be worse off. In at least 80% of the cases I see, specific muscle groups, or the whole body, need to get stronger to combat the pain and nudge the body to release trauma and let go.
3. Consider your finances and create a budget
When money feels uncertain, the body shifts into a “fight or flight” response, which causes tightening of the psoas, your deep hip flexor that is linked to fear and threat. During stressful times, it tightens up to make you ready to “run for your life”.
Stress hormones affect inflammation, make your existing back issues flare up more easily, and your back becomes more reactive and delicate.
The back muscles then go into a guarding mode and contract.
Shorter and quicker breathing leads to tension of the diaphragm, which in turn leads to increased tension of the paraspinalis muscles and back tension.
If this also makes you “stress-eat,” it can lead to even more inflammation in the gut and the body overall.
Additionally, the stress response can make your posture change: Your shoulders start to round, your belly is braced and tightened, and the psoas tightens, so you start leaning forward.
4. Kidneys
When kidneys are stressed, inflamed, or obstructed , they can cause discomfort on either side of the spine, typically just under the ribs.
Since kidneys are located close to your back muscles, pain originating in the kidneys can sometimes radiate toward the lower back, abdomen, and groin, making it feel like low back pain.
Below are a few safe and supportive things you can do to help your kidneys feel better and in turn your low back, if you’re not dealing with an acute infection, stones, or other emergency. Kidneys love steady hydration, not too much water too fast, and not too little too rarely, so sip water throughout the day.
If you are healthy in general, some mild kidney-supportive herbs are:
Nettle tea
Cranberries/unsweetened cranberry juice
Dandelion leaf tea
Supportive foods are:
Berries, especially blueberries and cranberries
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Apples
Olive oil
Ginger and turmeric
5. Strengthen the gluteus
Strong gluteus stabilizes the legs and the pelvis and thereby protects the lower back. Here are some exercises that are helpful:
Bridges: Lie down on your back, and bend your knees. Place your feet on the floor.
Lift your hips up until you feel your hamstrings and buttocks working. You might also feel a stretch in front of your hips and quads.
Do several repetitions, depending on how strong you are. 10X3 is a good goal. Press your feet down on the floor at the same time as you lift your hips up towards the sky.
Lower down to the floor again in the order of ribs, waist, and hips.
Clams: Lie down on one side. Keep legs together and on top of each other. Bend the knees.
Support your head on one arm or hand. Lift the top knee towards the ceiling, but make sure to keep the big toes of both feet together. You will open your legs as if you opened a clam!
Do about 10 or more of these, and build it up to 10X3. Repeat on the other side.
Leg kicks/circles: You can be standing or lying down. When standing, slightly hold onto the backrest of a chair in front of you. Do 10 kicks to the back of your body with a straight leg. Repeat on both legs. Work it up to 10x3.
Do 10 kicks to the side. Make sure to hold the leg to the side for a second or two to work the Gluteus medius. Work it up to 10x3.
Also, do circles with both legs, in each direction, forward and backwards. Make sure that your hips stay square and facing forward.
If you do this lying down on the side, make sure your hips stay on top of each other. Do 10 kicks forward and backwards.
Do 10 small circles to the front, change direction, and do 10 to the back.
At the gym: If you are strong enough and prefer the gym, you can use the abductor equipment. Make sure you’re working only with the gluteus and do not pull with your back muscles.
When your back is inflamed, weak, and unstable, the last thing you want to do is to use it instead of your gluteus!
Use a Pilates circle/magic circle: Buying a Pilates circle is a great investment. It’s usually around $30 or less. You can use this resistance circle in so many different ways, and one way is to strengthen your gluteus.
You can be sitting, standing, or lying down when using this tool, pulling it apart from the inside of the circle with your legs and gluteus. Most circles come with a suggestion of exercises, or you can look them up online.
Thera bands/rubber bands: can be used in a similar fashion to the magic circle in order to strengthen the gluteus. You tie the band around your ankles or thighs in order to get the resistance you like. You can walk with the band around your ankles sideways, and stretch the band as much as possible as you take a step. Make sure to switch leading legs.
Find another 15 tips in parts 1 and 3.
Take care of your health and back pain now!
Call or text Kicki Hjortmarker @ 1 (323) 404 6613
Email: kickis_therapy@icloud.com
Read more from Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker
Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker
Kicki Hjortmarker has a solid background in the hands-on healing field, treating people with injuries and chronic pain conditions. With a holistic approach, she integrates Neuromuscular Massage Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Reiki, Pilates, and more.
To practice the artistry of mind/bodywork and massage therapy has been Kicki's lifelong passion.
It started with the awareness of her own body as a child and ballet dancer, and, later, as a gymnast who developed chronic lower back pain whilst on the Swedish National Team in Rhythmic Sports Gymnastics.
Decades later, she overcame nerve damage and temporary paralysis in one hand.
This taught her to trust the healing power of body and mind, and that the body prefers holistic healing methods over conventional treatments.
Her mission is to encourage and inspire others to do the same: To trust the healing power of body, mind, and spirit!"
