The benefits of sauna therapy for back pain

The benefits of sauna therapy for back pain

The benefits of sauna therapy for back pain

sauna good for back pain

Back pain affects almost everyone in their thirties to fifties and can be caused by a variety of issues, including accidents, arthritis, and poor posture. Most of us have experienced it at some stage in our lives, with the most common symptoms feeling like a burning or tingling sensations, or sharp and stabbing pains. Thankfully, sauna therapy has been found to help with back pain. This is because the heat from the sauna opens up blood vessels, which aids in circulation and inflammation reduction, but more of this later. As an added benefit, sauna therapy should also help you relax and de-stress, which can aid your condition further. Let’s take a look at how an infrared sauna session can reduce pain, reduce stress and muscle tension, and support physical therapy for chronic back pain.

Acute and chronic pain in everyday life

Chronic pain is long-term pain that lasts for more than three months. It can be caused by an injury that has healed, an ongoing illness, or problems with the nervous system. Acute pain, on the other hand, is short-term pain that usually goes away once the injury or illness has been treated.

Chronic pain can be very debilitating and can significantly reduce your quality of life. It can cause a lot of stress and lead to problems such as anxiety and depression. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment for chronic pain, but sauna therapy may be able to help.

Many people experience brief bouts of lower back discomfort. For those under the age of 50, it most likely comes from strenuous exercise or medical conditions, while for those over it can come from a lack of core strength or even worse, a herniated disc.

If the back pain is exercise-related, the majority of pain goes away with the affected area of muscles recovering.

In reality, 80% of individuals have had acute back discomfort at some time in their life. For most, proper back support, bed rest, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or occasionally some pain killers will usually relieve most low back pain.

However, some back discomfort becomes persistent. Back pain is defined as “chronic” if it lasts longer than six months without improving. Only a small proportion of acute back discomfort progresses to chronic back suffering.

The pain may simply be an expression of ongoing stress or tension and in some cases nerve sensitivity. However, in some instances, the discomfort does not seem to have a specific cause. Movement and physical therapy prescribed by a physical therapist can help with back pain when it persists for lengthy periods of time.

If you are suffering from back pain, you’re not alone. Back pain is said to be the most frequent chronic pain identified, affecting more individuals than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined!

So what treatments are available for chronic back pain relief?

Sauna Back Pain

Saunas have always been used to help with pain relief and sore muscles, and it’s been clinically proven that heat therapy not only relaxes sore muscles, but also speeds up the healing process.

Now, clinical studies can also show the relationship between dry sauna therapy and reducing the pain level of back and neck pain.

According to a recent 2019 research, they reduce lower back pain by 2 points on a scale of 1 to 10 and improve overall disability scores. In other words, the effectiveness of reducing pain was accompanied by enhancements in functional ability, such as improved mobility and the capacity to do one’s job.

In another 1992 study, both the nervous system and rheumatoid arthritis associated pain was reduced and pain signals lowered by dry sauna therapy. Study participants were monitored for over one year and reduced pain was the consensial outcome.

Another research looked at the effects of infrared rays on pain perceptions in general. The group that received the infrared heat experienced a decrease in pain scores that was almost twice as large as the people who did not receive treatment. It took just six weeks for this substantial difference in outcome to become apparent.

A study compiling all of the past research on spa treatments reached a similar conclusion: pain and disability are significantly reduced among participants who soak in a sauna for low back pain.

So what do these medical papers suggest?

There’s strong preliminary evidence showing that infrared saunas are extremely helpful for countering chronic back pain through lowering pain receptors and improving overall mobility.

Because there are a number of different muscles in the back, and each has a different function, muscle spasms and achy muscles are really common.

These studies suggest that sauna for back pain can be attributed to how a sauna works, through an increase in blood circulation and an increase blood flow helps to relax sore muscles and provide white blood cells to help recover and repair.

This post was last modified on December 11, 2024 1:04 pm