Backing this view up, recent research has shown that a diet that is high in EPA fish oil reduced lower back pain in over 50% of participants in a study.

In the test, 125 participants who suffered from back pain were given 850 mg of EPA and 200 mg of DHA a day. As a result, over half of the participants were able to discontinue prescription pain medication. 17 different clinical trials have confirmed these results.

So what is going on here?

Joint pain is caused by an excess of proinflammatory messenger molecules. When this occurs a fatty acid called Eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA, aids in the anti-inflammatory response of the body to the pain. The fatty acid is converted to messenger molecules that relieve both pain and inflammation in joints. EPA has the additional benefit of preventing omega-6 fats from causing pain and inflammation.

Fish oil contains two naturally occurring fatty acids, EPA and DHA. As described above, it’s these fatty acids that help relieve joint and back pain. They operate in much the same way as the NSAIDs and COX-2 inhibitors in prescription drugs, but without the side effects.

The two fatty acids EPA and DHA are necessary for many functions in the body, but unfortunately they are not manufactured in the body in quantities sufficient for their use.

What do you have to do to get the benefit?

Take 2 to 3 grams of EPA and DHA a day for three months. This dosage has been shown to reduce the intensity of joint pain, morning stiffness, painful joints, joint tenderness and the need for prescription pain medications, such as NSAIDs.

Fish oil is best obtained from fatty fish, such as salmon, or alternatively from food supplements. Unfortunately, because of ocean pollution, the source of the fresh fish must be evaluated to ensure that the fish does not contain mercury.

If you are unsure about the quality of the fish, purchase food supplements containing EPA and DHEA instead, aiming for the proper balance of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids.

Be certain to verify that the fish oil supplements are fresh and free of mercury (fresh fish oil should not have a bitter or fish-like taste).

Adjusting Your Diet

We can’t say it too often that the more fresh, natural foods you include in your diet, the healthier you will become.

One of the causes of joint pain is the over-consumption of omega-6 fats in the modern American diet. Omega-6 fats are a necessary part of the diet; however, vegetable oils and overprocessed foods sway the balance that the body needs between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids.

The target ratio for optimum health is an omega-6:omega-3 ratio of 3:1, but most Americans consume a ratio of 15 to 1. This is the cause of much chronic inflammatory joint and back pain.

Stay Well!

Note: If you’re sick, or your back hurts badly and you think you’ve injured yourself, go and see your doctor, or a health practitioner. Also read our disclaimer before you attempt any exercise.

Unfortunately, if you don’t exercise regularly, especially as you age, the muscles supporting and surrounding your back will get weaker and stiffer over time and you’re more likely to suffer back pain and siatica.

Then these muscles won’t be able to work well enough when you most need them to. So when you put a strain on your back, it’s much more likely that your will injure your back.

Your back can get injured from an action as simple as reaching for something on your desk. More frequently it’s from a more obvious strain such as lifting something with a bad posture as you do it.

Back Exercises
Because your spine is so intimately connected with the rest of your body, back specific and general exercises can be the same thing

For example, swimming is a great, general ‘whole-of-body’ exercise, because it combines aerobic and strength aspects, whilst being low impact. You can push yourself as hard as you want with very low probability of injury and minimal stress on your joints.

Back Exercise Basics:
Every bit of exercise counts and every bit you do gives you a benefit. To strengthen your back, get into the habit of doing your back exercises every day.

When I started getting problems in my lower back, I developed a routine including sit ups of various kinds, leg lifts, trunk curls and yoga to build up my stomach and core abdominal muscles that play an important role in supporting the lower back.

The more you exert yourself, the more your body adapts to it.

In some respects your body is like your car. If you use it regularly and look after it, it is likely to be reliable and serve you well. Neglect it for long periods and don’t service it and you’re asking for trouble.

Walking

•Walking is usually great for your back (unless you have serious disk degeneration).

•Walk whenever you can. Walk up hills, walk up the stairs instead of taking the lift. Go for a walk in the mornings before work, go for a walk in the evenings after work.

•Walk as soon as possible after you have hurt your back, even if it hurts a bit. Your goal is to get mobile again as quickly as you can.

•If you work at a desk, help your back by getting up and walking around every 20 minutes or so, even if its just just for 30 seconds or so.

Swimming

•Swimming is a great general exercise that will help your back because it activates, strengthens and loosens many of the surrounding muscles.

More Challenging Back Exercises:

These work on muscles closely associated with your back. Some favourites are as follows:

•Yoga

Popular yoga stretches - The Salute to the Sun, Corpse stretch, Cat stretch, Wind-releasing pose, Sage twist, Palm tree, Fish pose , Locust , Bending forward posture

•Back Stretches

If you work on your stretching steadily, day by day, bit by bit you’ll find yourself able to reach further, you’ll slowly become more supple and find it doesn’t even hurt!

- Hamstring stretch, Lower back stretch, Middle back stretch, Upper back stretch
- Using an Exercise ball - Back arch, Back floor press, Ball squats

Hamstring stretch:

Warning do not do this if you already have back pain. This exercise should be done to loosen your hamstrings when your back is pain free.

Step 1

Step 2

 Step 3

•Pilates

The hundred, Spine stretch forward, The rollup, The saw, Spine twist, Ballerina arms

General Strengthening Exercises:

•Do 5 or 10 Hindu squats. These are great for strengthening your leg and muscles so they support your back better.

•Do 5 push ups when you have a spare moment. (if you can do 25 during the day, that will really make a difference). if you can’t do 5 do 3. (Women generally it easier to do push ups balancing on their knees, rather than their feet. If you don’t want to do a push up lying down do one leaning against a wall at 45 degrees

How Much Exercise Do You Have To Do?

If you want to get fit and strong, the recommended amount is 30 minutes of moderate activity on most days of the week, or 20 minutes of vigorous activity three days per week.

For your back specifically, it’s best if you do some exercises most days.

As outlined below, diet is now recognized as a means of preventing and controlling all sorts of ailments. Because the back is such a large and sensitive organ, it is likely to be impacted by any shortcomings in diet and nutrition. Studies have proven that particular foods can make the difference between heath or illness for many patients

Interestingly, by studying historical literature we can see that ordinary men and women were often more aware of the healing power of certain foods than were the healers or doctors of their era. You can certainly argue that this situation prevails today in mainstream medicine and it is only recently that science has begun to clarify how much what we eat can affect our health in different ways, good and bad.

There are famous quotations from ancient times that support the belief in food’s healing properties, such as:

• Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food - Hippocrates (c. 430-c. 377 BC)
• The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine - Lin Yutang (1895- ), writing in ‘The Importance of Living’.

The medical profession is somewhat divided in how to deal with this issue. There is a huge momentum towards treating the sickness and diseases that arise from poor diet i.e. eating the wrong foods. In other words, the mainstream medical focus is on correcting problems that have already arisen from poor diet and lifestyle choices, rather than ensuring that diet and lifestyle is structured so that these sicknesses do not occur in the first place.

The reasons for this situation are varied and complex beyond the scope of this article to discuss. Let’s just say that the medical system is today structured to treat disease rather than proactively ensure wellness and treating disease is where most of the profits are found.

Diet is now recognized as a means of preventing and controlling all sorts of ailments. This conclusion followed study after study. Collectively these studies have proven that particular foods can make the difference between heath or illness for many patients. This includes patients suffering from diseases that had previously been considered beyond the scope of modem treatment.

Whilst there is not complete agreement on the exact benefits of every food, there is broad agreement on the following key points:

- The foods you eat can make a huge difference to your overall health, by enhancing it and keeping disease at bay. The implication of this is, of course, vast because it means that any individual may be able to control just how healthy he or she is or remains simply by making informed choices about food intake.

- There is in fact no clear-cut dividing line between food and medicine. Hippocrates was correct in observing that: food can act as powerful medicine and in many instances, is the best medicine. Additionally, as researchers are constantly finding out, there .are times when food is the only suitable medicine.

- Many foods are packed full of chemical agents which when absorbed in the body can act just like drugs and even be more potent than these in their effect. Eating the right foods can be just like taking regular doses of health-bringing medicine. Equally, eating the wrong foods - what these are depends upon individual circumstances - can have wholly devastating results.

- Much of the advice about food contained in folklore and traditional cures has a sound scientific basis and has now been confirmed by research. The same goes for the information about food contained in the treatments prescribed by practitioners of alternative medicine. It is expected that future research will yet show that many more traditional treatments also have a sound basis.

- Quite often it only needs small adjustment in the diet to make the difference between glowing health and chronic, debilitating illness.

- There’s every reason to believe that food can be crucial in preventing illness from occurring in the first place as well as treating or alleviating existing disease,

- It is becoming increasingly obvious that the increasing incidence of “lifestyle” diseases in the Western world, such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome etc, have mainly dietary causes. It is already accepted that diet plays a major role in the development of these diseases and most experts believe that there is still a whole lot more confirmation still to come.

- Even in the developed parts of the world where most people don’t go short of food (and many are actually clinically obese), many are actually technically undernourished and are chronically short of the micronutrients they need to be fully healthy.

 

The good news thing is that right now (at the time of writing in Aug 2009) Jesse is actually giving the book away (the book is also for sale on Amazon).

As part of the offer, he is going to donate $2 to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital or Habitat for Humanity (your choice of charity) if you order your free copy from his website.

Click here to get your FREE copy now

The new book is an excellent source of information in that it has put together many helpful pieces of information about back pain and sciatica.

It especially helps with the problem that most people experience when they have back pain - that is they usually get treatments that only mask the pain and even then, the treatments only address the physical symptoms.

The book helps you understand:

- Why traditional treatments always FAIL to deliver lasting relief
- The 7 mistakes that most people make that keep them in pain
- How to identify the real, underlying causes of your pain
- Which treatments work, which ones don’t and how to know which is right for you

So if you have ever suffered from back pain, or are currently dealing with it, we highly recommend you grab a copy of the book now (and you can’t beat the price - free).  

Click here to get your FREE copy now

Eat Healthily

Your healing process will definitely be helped with a good diet and nutrition. Your diet should include good quality protein - vegetable or animal - as a source of the building blocks for tissue healing. Add plenty of  fresh fruit and vegetables to supply the vitamins and trace elements necessary for effective healing. A wholefood/natural vitamin supplement is often helpful too.

Get Plenty of Sleep

Active exercise is one of the best ways to encourage sleep. Inactivity tends to prevent the deep sleep that is so helpful for healing - both physical and emotional. Avoid stimulants such as caffeine or nicotine close to bedtime.

Don’t Smoke

Smoking is always bad for you (you knew that). When you are recovering it should be avoided in particular, because it diminishes the available blood supply to the injured areas and makes your nervous system more sensitive.

Control Your Anxiety

Managing anxiety and fear of re-injury is important to enable you to regain normal muscle function. A common psychological reaction to low back pain is that your nervous system responds to the pain by instructing the muscles near the affected part to protect against further injury.These muscles then “seize up” which causes more pain and stops the correct movements.

The exercises in the Better Back System specifically tell your back muscles to re-start their normal movements to overcome this neurological barrier to correct muscle function.

Limit Drug Use

Clearly medications help with pain relief and sciatica and back pain can be particularly excrutiating. Nevertheless, try and restrict your use of drugs. medications. The use of heat or cold, or liniment or massage, as a mechanism for pain control is a very safe and positive alternative for pain management.

When drugs e.g. narcotic medications and muscle relaxants are used over extended periods, they can cause depression, so try to use them as little as possible. Also, anti-inflammatory medications may provide short-term pain relief, but there is no evidence that they do anything to speed up the healing process.

Exercise Properly
We recommend the Better Back System for special back exercises that will help your back to heal and build up strength so your back injury is much less likely to occur again.

The special exercises train your nervous system to instruct your back muscles what to do and provide an effective exercise and rehabilitation program.

See Your Doctor

If back pain persists or yu have not experience dit before, you can seek the assistance of an appropriately trained and licensed health professional for your rehabilitation.

Also, its important to see a physician if your sciatica or lower back pain lasts for more than a few weeks or a month, or if you have any symptoms that cause you concern.

This site is designed to give you access to materials, including a free back health course that will help you learn about sciatica, back pain and home treatment of sciatica.

There are a large number of reasons why you can get sciatica and back pain. My view is that there are relatively few that benefit from drugs. Mostly sciatica and back pain (excluding accidents and obvious injuries) are related to issues such as:

- poor posture,

- bad habits that aggravate your back,

- mechanical weakness,

- lack of exercise 

- diet and

- ageing.

Many of these can be treated by yourself with sciatica home treatment. The Better Back System is an excellent resource to assist you in your own treatment with a better than 97% chance of success.

However, if you are newly suffering from back problems or back pain and/or you are under the care of a doctor you should consult your doctor before beginning any treatment. Also read our disclaimer before trying anything unfamiliar.

My theory is that the less toxins we put into our bodies, the more energy and ability our bodies have to stay healthy and fight sickness and injury before they really take hold. This includes delaying the impacts of the  ageing process.

Obviously, injuries to your back from accidents, vehicle crashes etc create a different set of circumstances to your normal level of health.

However, even then your healing process is greatly enhanced by a focus on your overall wellbeing, healthy eating and minimizing exposure to toxic chemicals.

There are many sources that argue this same proposition. As an illustration, many alternative cancer treatments basically consist of a diet of freshly juiced natural foods, combined with rest, fresh air and exercise.

So if you combine a healthy diet with exercises such as yoga, plus specific back exercises such as those in the Better Back System you’re likely to find your way to a new healthy world where your sciatica and back pain are much less troublesome or even disappear altogether.

If you have read this message elsewhere on the site, that’s good, because it’s one of the key health lessons to be learned.

n.b If you find particular health issues stay around, it’s also worth checking out EFT at www.emofree.com.

Your lower back, which is where many back problems occur, is supported by the so-called “core muscles”.

If your core muscles in particular are weak, it means your lower back is carrying a larger part of the strain of lifting and twisting and you are more likely to suffer low back pain as a result.

This is why a lot of back pain exercises focus on strengthening these core muscles, or at least “waking them up” and making them more flexible.

Sciatica Exercise - The Back Pull Down
This exercise is quite different to run-of-the-mill back exercises, but it is great at waking up back muscles that are often dormant (see video below).

It is best done with an elastic exercise band which you can buy from almost any sporting goods store.

As an alternative, you can use any household item that has some degree of elasticity e.g. an elastic luggage strap, an old bicycle inner tube etc. You can also use a rolled up towel, but the lack of stretch in it will make the exercise harder to do.

Sit upright in a chair with your back straight and your tummy pulled in. Raise your arms above your head holding the elastic band or towel in between them horizontally with your hands approximately shoulder width apart.

Stretch your arms up as far as they will go then slowly pull your arms behind your neck, keeping the elastic band or towel horizontal and with a slight tension on it.

Keep pulling down until the band is roughly half way down your back (if you can get that far). Rest there briefly, then raise your arms again until your arms up as far as they will go again. Remember to keep the band horizontal while you move it up and down.

Do the movements up and down slowly and steadily, don’t rush them. You can change the degree of difficulty and effect of the exercise by increasing or decreasing the tension on the band or towel.

If you pull harder to make it tight as you move up and down it takes more effort, but it has the benefit of working your back muscles harder and differently than if you do it with only light tension in the band.

Repeat the exercise about 5 times the first time you do it (depending on how fit you are and what your back tells you about the effect.

DON’T OVERDO it at first or you’re likely to end up sore and not inclined to do it again for a while and it is best done regularly.

Then you can build up the repetitions over time until you’ve reached 20, which is about as many as you will ever need to do at one time. (Feel free to do more if you want to though. I sometimes keep on going to 30 or more, especially if I’ve been sitting at a PC all day and feel stiff or tense. I might rest for a few minutes and then do another 20-30 depending on how I feel).

Remember the Better Back System gives you a complete easy-to-follow exercise and diet system for treating sciatica and back pain. Check it out here.

One of the reasons is that studies show that surgery produces no statistical difference in long-term results for curing sciatica and lower back pain, as compared to conservative (i.e. non-surgical) care.

The key words used here are “no statistical difference”.

What this means is that in a sample of say 100 people who have back surgery, there will be:

1. Some people who obtain a positive benefit,
2. Some who end up worse off and
3. The majority for whom there is minimal difference. The average, long term result for the whole group is no difference.

It’s important that you understand how the statistics work.

The other factor to understand is that the benefits from back surgery are typically not long lasting. After 6 months or so, people tend to be back where they started.

So the summary is that you should be very cautious before embarking on back surgery, because the odds on it helping you are not good. I suggest you get at least two opinions before considering surgery.

Again, what we recommend in terms of non surgical lower back pain treatment and sciatica is:

1. Change your pattern of movement, routine, exercise - if you’re not doing any exercise then start!

2. Start a set of exercises designed for your back. You can sign up for the free back exercise course using the form on the left, or buy the Better Back System.

3. Develop good eating habits. Food is the fuel, lubrication and building material of your body. Guess what - if you feed it poor quality food and chemical toxins it just can’t work very well!

(a) understand what you are (probably) doing that is causing you back pain in the first place and

(b) learn more how your back works and

(c) find out what you can do e.g. siatica exercises to strengthen your back, avoid injury and stay pain free.

Most people will find out it is possible to stop low back pain and sciatica in just a few weeks or sometimes even days and build themselves a healthy back.

The factors that increase the risks of you experiencing back pain or sciatica include common conditions such as:

* Sitting for long periods with a bad posture
* Driving for long periods without a stretch or a walk
* Being overweight
* Smoking
* Heavy lifting with bad technique

Of course, Its better if you get help and take action early, because it will probably reduce the number of times your back pain recurs.

Also, prevention is than a cure, so we’ll also help you learn about what you can do to stop it from happening in the first place.

Things You Can Do To Help Your Back

1. If you want learn more about your back, sciatica and how to deal with your back pain, subscribe to the free Back Exercise Course (see the form on the left of this page)

2. Try the Better Back System.

The Better Back System guides you through a set of special siatica exercises that you can do at home in about 5-10 minutes a day with a 97% chance of success.

3. Start eating properly! Give your body the nutrition it needs to function and heal itself properly i.e. a simple diet with a good selection of fresh foods and less (and ideally no) processed junk is one of the keys to goo dhealth

Because many of the foods we eat today are highly processed, we also suggest a natural nutrition supplement to make sure your body gets all the nutrients it needs. The BodyBalance supplement is one of the best we’ve found so far. Google it and you can often get a month’s free supply which will give you enough time to see if it works for you.

Remember to read our disclaimer. We are not medical practitioners and you should always consult your doctor, health practitioner or back specialist, especially if you experience progressive weakness in the legs.