What to do about a sore back or muscluar back pain

I have some first hand experience of back pain used before my one year industrial placement at college, the day of an exam, I woke up and couldn't straighten my back. I had the summer to recover before I had to start the placement. I spent most of it on my hands and knees crawling about my mams house.

I went to see an osteopathe and he helped a little, I then went to see another guy and he sorted me out.

This is when I first found out about back exercises and one good tip.

The exercises are firstly to get on the floor on all fours and arch your back like a scared cat. Then do the opposite, dip your back. Hold each position for a couple of seconds. You can increase the degree as you feel comfortable with it.

The next exercise is to lye flat on the floor and put your hand palms down next to you. Then lift your upper torso up with your hands, so your back is arched. Again, does this the degree comfort permits. Then lower yourself down flat and repeat a few times hold each position for several seconds.

The tip I was told about is when your driving your car, use the ball of your foot on the accelerator not your flat foot. Although this more due to some sciatic pain I had.

I always had the pain on one side of my back the lower lumbar muscles.

During this time until my next episode I often got back pain.

Later again, oddly, at a stressful time, I had a back problem after a long period of being unhappy in my permanent job. Same sort of problems as the first time. My work hassled me and sent out a chiropractor, who said initially what are you lying like that for, never lye with both legs straight on your back, always keep one leg slightly bent. I didn't go with him due to cost.

However I found another ostepathe how did lumbar injections, which reduced the swelling in my lumbar muslces. That was about 9 years ago, I haven't had back pain which has lasted longer than a day since.

One tip he gave me was to put some ice on a cloth, I got told off for the bag of peas as it didn't have the water / coldness of the ice and the cloth.

I found a video called a back for life and the back expert spent a long time explaining the exercises and recommended that suffers get a mat and do the exercises everyday to build up muscles and "have a healthy back for life".

In the last year or so I've been going to aerobics and we do the lying down exercise there.

I do find exercise and walking help too.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention a couple of things.

I believe the reason my back problems started in the first place was that, I slipped on the ice in my first year as a student, I did the old slapstip fall, where you feet go up in the air, I landed on my lower back.

Also, yes baths do help, but not because of the heat, but because your arching your back when you lye in the bath for a several minutes.

Tips to Help Lose Weight

It's a bit late for New Year Resolutions but it's never too late in the year to show resolution, especially if you've gained any weight over the Xmas break. Over Christmas it's all too easy to gain weight with parties, christmas dinners and suppers. It comes as no surprise to find that most people's New Year resolution is start a diet and lose weight. Equally unsurprising is the fact that few people succeed. Here are a set of tips to help shed a few pounds.

Avoid alcohol, especially in the evenings

Alcohol is fattening in it's own right. Worse, drinking lowers your resistence to temptation. Have you ever experienced the Midnight Munchies after drinking? Snacking at night after a few glasses of wine (don't cheese and wine go great together?) is a surefire recipe to weight gain.

Don't wear loose-fitting clothing

Don't lounge around the house in causal clothing such as jogging bottoms and a tee-shirt. If your jeans are feeling tighter after Christmas, make a point of wearing them. Feeling slightly uncomfortable in your clothing will be a reminder you need to lose weight and will reduce the temptation to eat between meals.

Don't diet, just eat less

Duh! Isn't eating less going on a diet? Well it all depends. Going on a fad diet, e.g. only eating vegetables, will work for a short while but it simply isn't possible to keep such a diet going. Most people fail within a few days or simply cheat from day one. Unless your diet is particularly unhealthy, e.g. involving lots of sugary food, don't change what you eat simply try to eat less of it, less often. A lot of fad diets are spectacularly boring and the human palate likes variety. Fad diets are a recipe for failure.

Change your routine to make food less accessible

This doesn't mean put a padlock on the fridge! Instead, don't have periods where you are bored around the house. Get out and about, go for a long walk, take up a new hobby but occupy yourself and distract yourself from eating. If you work, it should be relatively easy to drop a few pounds after the holidays since you'll be naturally distanced from food and temptation.

Buy less food

This tactic is childishly simply. If you have guilty foods you know you either shouldn't eat, or should eat less often, then simply don't stock up on them. For example, don't buy biscuits. Try going a few days without bread in the house. Bread is very high in carbohydrates and is a great tempter to keep stuffing.

Try cooking different meals occasionally

Try out new recipes some days of the week. Recipes based on beans can be high in roughage and a great weigh of detoxifying and losing weight.

Don't crash diet

Above all don't go on a crash diet and starve a few pounds off. The weight will go straight back on as soon as you can no longer starve yourself. Crash diets come in different forms. One of the least successful is to starve yourself during the week and then eat normally, i.e. binge, at weekends thinking you deserve some treats after a hungry week. You'll never lose weight with this kind of diet.

Hopefully these tips will be useful and help you lose weight. Early January is the best time to think about losing weight since most people are feeling over-stuffed from Xmas. Try being strong-willed and in a couple of weeks you'll soon have lost any weight gained over the Christmas break.

How to avoid colds and flu?

In the past year I seem to have picked up every cold and flue bug going around.

I'm one of these people who is always hot, not like my wife who is always cold, and therefore I often find myself, when I'm outside, cold as I put a thin coat on, when I should have put my thicker coat on.

At the moment, I do where my thick coat and woolie hat as I do the school (well nursery) for our son, so I'm out walking around first thing and at lunchtime, like most people.

I know the fact that our monkey is at nursery and in a hive of bugs and that we're or rather I'm most likely to catch bugs from him.

But I just seem to pick up one bug after another.

I'm just wondering if you guys have any secrets or whether your doing things out of habbit that I'm not?

Or are you having the same problems?