|  Your feet take a beating each and every day. They hold you up, move you around, and help do things like drive your car and shovel your garden. While we are good at taking care of our skin, hands, and other body parts, and we watch out for things like cancer, high cholesterol, and other health ailments, we rarely pay any attention to our hard working feet. Almost everyone will have days and even weeks when they have painful feet for whatever reason. Take some time to take care of your feet so they can continue to take care of you.
The first part of taking care of your painful feet is to figure out why they are hurting so much. It could be that you have been doing something that caused temporary pain, and stopping that activity is the easiest way to get rid of the pain. Usually, however, we don’t know right away what the problem might be and why we have painful feet. It could be an activity, the way we are walking, a certain type or pair of shoes, or perhaps there is a medical issue that needs to be addressed. All of these things are very common reasons for pain in the feet and up the legs. Womens shoes are often a cause of painful feet, though many feel that they have to put up with the pain to keep up with fashion. High heels hold the feet and the body in a very unnatural position and should not be worn every day. If you could see what can happen to your feet from the long term use of high heels, you may not think they are as sexy as you thought they were. If you want to wear them, wear them only on certain occasions. Do not wear them each day and your feet will thank you for it. Continue Reading »
 Your feet take a beating each and every day. They hold you up, move you around, and help do things like drive your car and shovel your garden. While we are good at taking care of our skin, hands, and other body parts, and we watch out for things like cancer, high cholesterol, and other health ailments, we rarely pay any attention to our hard working feet. Almost everyone will have days and even weeks when they have painful feet for whatever reason. Take some time to take care of your feet so they can continue to take care of you.
The first part of taking care of your painful feet is to figure out why they are hurting so much. It could be that you have been doing something that caused temporary pain, and stopping that activity is the easiest way to get rid of the pain. Usually, however, we don’t know right away what the problem might be and why we have painful feet. It could be an activity, the way we are walking, a certain type or pair of shoes, or perhaps there is a medical issue that needs to be addressed. All of these things are very common reasons for pain in the feet and up the legs. Womens shoes are often a cause of painful feet, though many feel that they have to put up with the pain to keep up with fashion. High heels hold the feet and the body in a very unnatural position and should not be worn every day. If you could see what can happen to your feet from the long term use of high heels, you may not think they are as sexy as you thought they were. If you want to wear them, wear them only on certain occasions. Do not wear them each day and your feet will thank you for it. Continue Reading »
I am guessing that all of us can relate to the title of this article. I am sure you have bent over for that 4 footer (can’t give you that 4 footer, sorry), and felt that lower back feel tired, sore, painful or tight. Regardless of what the word is, you feel it! I also am guessing that some of you have changed to belly putters for the reason that your back hurts when you putt! Even if you are one of those players that has switched to a belly putter because of back pain, that pain is an indicator of something else going on within the body. I am sure we could use the excuse: I am older now and that is just what happens; or maybe we use the “cave man excuse”: humans just were meant to walk on two legs! Regardless of what excuse you use, there is a reason and solution to solve those lower back problems. Even if you don’t realize it, the lower back that you feel when putting is also affecting the other parts of your game (i.e. driving, long irons, chipping, pitching, etc.) This article has the goal of explaining why your back is sore when you putt and what we can do to help alleviate the problem. Why Does My Lower Back Ache? Well, let me say this to start. If you are in agreement with the “caveman excuse” you are in the ballpark as to why the lower back begins to ache on the 12th or 13th green. Standing upright, which is a specific posture (keep that word “posture” in mind throughout this article), places stress on the lower back. When I say stress, I am talking about the muscles of your lower back working to support your body in a specific position. The same holds true for when you putt. You get behind the ball, line the putt up, look at the line, maybe crouch down, take a few practice putts, and then away you go. In all the actions described above, your lower back is actively working to maintain posture in all those positions. Do this little activity to give you an idea of what your back is doing all the time to support your body. Take your hand and make a fist. Squeeze that fist as hard as you can for one minute, no less, more if you can. Now relax. How do your hand and forearm feel? Pretty tired, huh, maybe stiff. What you just did is exactly what your lower back does all the time. It is constantly contracting to hold your body upright. After time it gets tired and the result is a sore, stiff, and tight lower back. Continue Reading »
 When something happens, you hope against hope that there is something that can be done to fix whatever medical problem you have encountered. There are some medical conditions that mean constant pain for the patient, but those can be managed. If you have something wrong with your body, surgery may fix it, but not always. If you are in an accident, the surgeons will do their best, but some things are not entirely fixable. Pain management is what many face when surgery and treatments can not totally fix a problem. Your voice is important in your medical treatment and you have to speak up when needed.
Some people will suffer in silence when they are in pain. At times, doctors may tell them that there is nothing they can do and that they just have to deal with the pain. This is not always true. There are many people out there that fake injuries and pain because they want drugs, and you have to push doctors for pain management so they know you are really hurt. If you take some token drugs and then just try to deal with it, that is all that you are going to get. You have to push for pain management or you are going to suffer. Don’t be bullied or put back – ask for what you need as often as you have to so you can get the results that you want. Some conditions, like back pain, are fixable with surgery, but it could take you a while to get into see someone that can help you. Even then, it can take longer to get the appointment for your surgery. In the meantime, you could be in a lot of pain. If the medications they have given you are not working for pain management, talk with your doctor every single day if you have to until something else is worked out. At times, there are medications that will work better or differently. Your doctor will not know what they have given you for pain management is not working unless you say so. Continue Reading »
 Back pain is something that most people deal with at one time or another. For many, it is the result of an injury. They may have been in an accident that did damage to the back, or perhaps they moved something heavy for a friend and lifted in the wrong way. Others have a need to find chronic back pain relief because they have jobs that have causes wear and tear on their backs and bodies for a very long time. Sometimes, sitting in the wrong chair all day can cause chronic back pain for some people. Luckily, there is help out there when back pain is unbearable.
The best time to get chronic back pain relief is before it gets bad. However, that is not always possible. If you have had problems in the past, and you feel some of the same old pains coming back, do what you have to do to get it taken care of before it gets bad again and you find that you can not walk. Though not all back pain becomes so bad that the person in question is immobilized, that is always a possibility. When small aches and pains seem to be getting worse, work on getting some help as soon as you can. One thing that you may do for chronic back pain relief is to go see a chiropractor. This is often a great way to get pain relief when something is out of line in your back. It may not help much with vertebrae damage, but it can help many people. The problem is that many medical doctors will fail to tell people that they have this option. Some suffer for a long time before they go and then find relief right away. If you have a new back problem, are pregnant and experiencing pain, or had an accident, this is one option that may work well for chronic back pain relief. Continue Reading »
 If practicing yoga for back pain doesn’t rid you of the pain, it will certainly help to reduce its intensity and frequency. Among the few options available for back pain sufferers is physical therapy. Yoga, although not primarily a therapy, is often offered as a part of the therapy regimen and has proven effective in helping a person master, if not completely alleviate, the pain. Practicing yoga for back pain may be just what you need.
Developed in the context of Hinduism, yoga was originally practiced with the goal of uniting the body and mind. In the Hindu tradition, the soul is an invisible system of power centers located along the spine, with branches leading from these to other parts of the body and a main line, connecting each power center to the one above and below it. The system carries a spiritual energy that is inhaled. In theory, practicing yoga for back pain fills your body with this healing and vital force. In yoga, you’re not only breathing in oxygen, but a spiritual energy that surrounds you. This is life energy. In a yoga breathing exercise, you breathe from your belly, tightening your sphincter muscles with each inhalation. The energy gathers in the ‘power center’, located about two inches below your navel. You hold the breath for a few seconds, and when you exhale, you loosen your sphincter muscle and let the your whole body exhale the wasted and noxious energy that may be the cause of your pain. The life energy that you gather in your belly is stored there, and it flows up and down to other power centers, located at points along your spine. You have six power centers in the body and one outside, above the skull. Two power centers are located below the belly power center, called the ‘burner’, in the Zen tradition, one at the base of the spine and the other in the pubic area. Above the burner are three other power centers, the heart and the throat power centers, and the spiritually-charged power center, between the eyes. Each power center absorbs life energy, but power also flows from center to center through the channels that connect these. Continue Reading »
 I have suffered from lower back pain for many years. When I was fourteen years old I fell while ice skating and landed on my tail bone. Since then I have battled with pain in my lower back. I have been involved with a variety of treatments and medications. I have had ultra sound treatments, deep heat treatments and electrical current treatments. Each has been very effective for a time in helping with the lower back pain, but no matter how good the treatment eventually the pain returns.
The doctor’s have prescribed a variety of medications. Some of them have taken the pain away, but the side effects have been difficult to deal with. Some of the medications have even been taken off the market because of the side effects they have on the heart. The more medications I tried the more I realized that I needed to find an alternative way to deal with my lower back. Through the years I have learned that the best thing I can do is concentrate on preventing the lower back pain rather than treating it after it occurs. The best way for me to prevent the lower back pain is to alter my movements through out the day. If I sit or stand for too long of a time period my lower back starts to bother me. By taking breaks from sitting or standing for long periods of time I can prevent the lower back pain. I have also found that stretching each morning when I get up and each evening before I go to bed helps my lower back feel better. Lower back pain can affect everything about my day. If I do not address the pain in my lower back it begins to travel up my spine and eventually causes headaches. The few minutes that the stretching exercises take is well worth the effort to avoid the domino effect that happens to me when I do not take care of my lower back. Continue Reading »
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