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Show mmmmh Released by Western Newspaper Union. LOW BACK PAINS Most sufferers from low back pain naturally reach for help to relieve pain rather than search for the cause. They will take painkilling drugs, use heat and Jt electricity, hot wrl,-: baths, massage, and ft . : other methods of I . treatment. In cases Jtr where pain is due to T strain or other in- Fl && e use ' neat &S4 . to muscles that are j t f stretching the spine C1 away from the point t .-I"! of injury is good Bkv . a&uJ treatment but get- Dr. Barton ting the strained or sprained parts back into their proper position would get the patient well in much less time. In speaking of low back pain I have usually pointed out that most cases are really due to infection tonsils, teeth, gall bladder, intestine intes-tine and the remainder to injury strain and sprain of certain joints, injury to the disk or cushion between be-tween the bones of the spinal column. col-umn. Sometimes the strain or sprain is due to poor posture. Dr. P. M. Girard, Dallas, Texas, in Archives of Physical Therapy, points out that while low back pain is present in the spot where the infection in-fection or injury occurs, that pain also occurs in places distant from the point of infection or injury. This is known as a "referred" pain and because it occurs at a distance from the infected or injured spot, the cause may be overlooked. On the other hand, pain may occur in lower back and down back of thighs and be due not to injury or infection at point of pain but to growths in spinal cord, rupture, appendicitis, turns or bends of uterus, growths in ovary, and stone in bladder. A slight injury due to swinging a golf club or making a misstep may tear a muscle, rupture a ligament, liga-ment, or injure the joint holding one spinal bone to the next one. The more the subject of low backache back-ache is investigated the more physicians physi-cians are coming to believe that poor posture letting the body slump or sag is a more frequent cause than was formerly thought. This is the reason that when injury is the cause (as shown by relief from pain when at rest) and both patient and physician are unable to find any history of injury, they forget about i poor posture as a cause. |