Health/Wellness

Chronic Low Back Pain? Manage It With Pressure

New studies validate what ancient healers have always known.

Erin King is the author of How To Be Wise AF: A 30-day journalling adventure to your inner Guru.

Anyone with chronic low back pain knows how debilitating it can be.

There are many treatments for lower back pain, everything from chiropractic to physiotherapy or plain old robaxacet when you need immediate relief.

• But what if you don’t have money for treatment?
• Or if you’re getting treatment, but you want to supplement it?
• What if you’re looking for a way to manage your pain without drugs?

If that’s the case, you might want to give acupressure a try.

A study in the Oxford Academic Journal of Pain Medicine took sixty-seven people suffering from chronic back pain and divided them into three groups:

• One performed relaxing acupressure on themselves.
• One administered stimulating acupressure.
• The final group was a control group that would continue care as usual.

The acupressure groups were instructed to do between 27–30 minutes per day for six weeks, and the results were encouraging.

After six weeks, the group that performed stimulating acupressure noticed an improvement in pain and fatigue. The group that did relaxing acupressure experienced reduced pain.

(There was no improvement in sleep quality or disability.)

So the study validates what the ancients knew many years ago because acupressure is a traditional Chinese Medicine technique that’s been around for over 2000 years.

It’s based on invisible channels of vital energy — or life force called qi (ch’i).

You release qi by pressing on specific points on the body.

They’re the same meridians as in acupuncture but pressure is used on the points instead of needles.

Acupressure is thought to be a way to turn on the body's self-healing mechanisms.

It’s believed that by unblocking the flow of chi to balance yin and yang (the two opposing energies in the body), you enhance wellness by encouraging healing.

As this centuries-old method becomes tested and validated by modern science, more and more western doctors are embracing it as a supplemental therapy.

This encouraging study indicates a partnership between modern and ancient medicine may very well be the way of the future.

Bonus testimonial:

Today I was suffering from a pretty painful bout of IBS as I was writing this.

I’d rate it at about a 7/10.

My attacks usually last 4–5 hours. They render me incapacitated and leave me spent. I get pain in my lower left abdomen. I feel like I’m being stabbed.

At this point, I was about three hours into an attack which usually lasts about five hours.

The study I was reading got me thinking about my own pain, so I decided to see if I could do anything about it with acupressure.

So I searched “Acupressure for IBS.”

I spent about 10 minutes going through the pressure points on the website, and it almost completely cleared up within about 10 minutes.

My stomach is a little twingy, but I can quickly get up and down from my chair, pick things up, and pop up and down the stairs now, which is unheard of when I’m having an attack this bad.

Typically, I’d be lying in bed or sitting in a chair, unable to move.

I usually can’t eat for the rest of the day either.

But here I am eating lunch and finishing this piece, going about my day as usual. I’m shocked at how quickly and how well that application seems to have worked.

• Was it a coincidence?
• Was it wishful thinking?

Who knows, but what I know is that the next time I feel an attack coming on, I’m going to do the same acupressure routine that I just did.

I’m glad I just happened to read that study and decide to write about it this morning because that information saved me from about two-and-a-half more hours of pain.

Update:

Since first writing this story, I’ve been diagnosed with diverticulosis, so I didn’t actually have IBS. But the routine I used for my attack worked that day, and it’s continued to work.

I’ve used that routine every time I’ve had an attack, and it’s worked every time. Five-hour attacks are a thing of the past, when I feel one come on, I do the routine a few times, and it clears right up.

This has been useful because I don’t always catch myself eating the things that cause the attacks.

The routine relaxes my intestine, so whatever’s stuck is released. Before I started my acupressure routine, I’d get a hard painful cramp that wouldn’t release whatever was trapped.

I’ve also begun to use acupressure for other problems, usually stomach-related.

I’ve done it for acid reflux and digestion problems, and it’s worked for those as well. My husband put his back out and did some pressure points for that, which helped with his pain.

I’ve always been open to alternative therapy, so I’m not a skeptic.

But, I’m still a bit shocked at how well this has helped with my diverticulosis.

If you have pain, you’re trying to manage or a condition you want supplemental treatment for, you might want to look into acupressure.

It might be something you can do to help yourself, and it’s free.

✳Of course, if you have a serious condition, you should always talk to your doctor first before trying anything new.

Thanks for reading!☺

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