Experiencing A Lot of Morning Back Pain? - Toronto

Why is it that you wake up with so much back pain in the morning?  Yes, you have a lot of back pain during the day... but your somewhat active, so it's justified to have pain.  But at night when your sleeping, you're doing nothing but lying there without straining your back!

Well there are a few reasons why you may be experiencing pain... and without a doubt, if you are above the age of 40, it's one or a combination of two things... spinal arthritis/degenerative disc disease or a disc herniation.

Before we dive into the above, morning back pain can also be due to the way that you sleep!  The number one way to wake up with back pain, is by sleeping on your stomach. 

Important to note here, that morning neck pain can be due to the above mentioned reasons as well!  That is, if you suffer from a disc herniation, spinal arthritis/ degenerative disc disease or you sleep on your stomach, you can almost guarantee that you'll have neck pain in the morning... and if you don't yet, you soon will.

Sleeping on your stomach will lead to morning pain because your pelvis, which is anatomically heavy, will rotate downwards and jam the joints in your back, this will lead to joint damage, inflammation and pain.  As for your neck, when lying on your stomach, you will have to torque (twist) out your neck to one side.  This twisting of your neck, much like the joints to your lower back, will lead to joint damage, inflammation and pain.  (At the end of this blog, I'll tell you the best position to sleep to minimize back pain.)

Now remember, this pain will occur even if you have a healthy spine!

As mentioned above, if you have a history of chronic neck or back pain, chances are you are now suffering with spinal arthritis, degenerative disc disease and/or a disc herniation.

Having spinal arthritis or degenerative disc disease, your spinal discs have started to decay and so the joints are now closing up and rubbing together.  Thus, sleeping on your stomach, which already causes the joints to jam, will now create a lot more pressure or jamming of your joints because of the spinal arthritis!  

If you have a disc herniation in your neck or back, sleeping on your stomach can cause that disc herniation to pop out further and therefore cause more pain and sciatica (note: you can also experience sciatica with spinal arthritis).

"But I Don't Sleep On My Stomach and I Still Wake Up With Morning Pain!"

At the Toronto Spine Clinic, we hear this all the time.  Unfortunately, when you wake up every morning in pain, it's not a matter of sleeping position.... it's now a matter of not moving when you sleep.

Confused?

When you experience degenerative disc disease or spinal arthritis, your discs are decaying or becoming thinner.  So, as your discs become thinner, the joint spaces in your back get smaller and smaller.  So when lying down sleeping, you are not moving very much and so the blood flow to the area decreases, the area gets colder, the muscles start to tighten and because the muscles start to tighten, it causes your already tight joints to close up even more.  When this happens, as mentioned above, your joints are further damaged, you develop inflammation and pain.

Ever notice, that when you are finally able to get out of bed and move around a bit, the pain starts to lessen?  Well, the reason why this happens is because you are now warming up the area... blood in being flushed in, the muscles are loosening up and so the joints are opening up.  When your joints open up, the pressure is removed and so the pain lessens.

Unfortunately, this is not lasting because the more active you are, the more damage you create to your spine and the worse your problem becomes!

What needs occur in order to remove your pain is rehabilitating your disc... which is the origin of your problem!  If you are able to increase the height of your degenerated disc, you are able to open up your spinal joints, remove the pressure off of your joints and ultimately remove your pain!

This is exactly what is being achieved at the Toronto Spine Clinic.

Here at the Toronto Spine Clinic, we specialize in the treatment of severe and chronic neck and back pain.  In fact, all that is treated here at our clinic is spinal arthritis, degenerative disc disease, disc herniations and failed back surgery.  

As you can see from the video below, by using our highly sophisticated non-surgical technology, we are able to rehabilitate your degenerative disc such that your joint no longer rub together and if you are experiencing sciatic pain due to bony pressure on your sciatic nerve, by rehabilitating your disc, we can also remove the pressure off of your nerve.

By addressing the direct cause of your condition, we are not just able to remove your pain but we are able to provide LASTING results. 

So as you can see from the video, our treatments are very target specific.  In fact, 89-90% of the treatment forces will be applied directly to your problematic disc.  Therefore, by having the ability to be so precise, your body can quickly be rehabilitated!

Some patients are concerned that the treatments are painful, especially since their are already in tremendous pain before starting care.  Because there is an advanced computerized patient monitoring system built within our technology, the treatments are very gentle and patient typically have instant relief in pain when their treatments start.  In fact, treatments are so gentle, that patients often fall asleep while under care!

If  you would like to find out if you are a candidate for our treatments, call us today and book your FREE consultation.

Call us at (905) 850-1007 or toll-free at 1-855-TSC-DISC (1-855-872-3472).

Click here to fill out our On-Line Patient intake form or visit our website for further information... http://www.torontospineclinic.com

The Toronto Spine Clinic

6175 Hwy 7, Unit 3 (Corner of Hwy 7 and Hwy 27)

Woodbridge, On. L4h 0K9

You thought we forget to tell you the best way to sleep to minimize your pain didn't ya?

First... you need to have a medium firm matress.

Secondly... when sleeping on your back, place a pillow either under  your knees or under your thighs.  When sleeping on your side, but a pillow not only between your knees, but also a small one along your waist (i.e. the side that is lying on the bed)

You always want to keep your spine in an aligned position and this is achieved by placing pillows in the above mentioned areas!