How Inversion Tables Can Help With Back Pain Relief
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I’ve not read any studies that have demonstrated definitively that you can get health benefits from using an inversion table and/or using inversion therapy.
Like many types of treatment, some users think they’re great and say they get worthwhile back pain relief from an inversion table, whereas others say the benefits are marginal, or not apparent at all.
The positive side of inversion therapy is that there appear to be no harmful effects – either it helps or it doesn’t, but there’s no downside (except possibly the waste of time and money).
A typical, home-use inversion table
So the potential benefits are as follows:
(A) For Back Pain Specifically:
- An inversion table can give you relief from different forms of back pain.
- An inversion table takes pressure off your back and enables the body to stretch and re-align and can help to stretch and strengthen ligaments.
(B) Potential General Health Benefits:
- Because you’re hanging upside down inversion therapy may help increase oxygen flow to the brain – your head is now ‘down’ for the blood flow.
- An inversion table may also help to improve your circulation
- By taking pressure off your discs it can encourage natural healing processes to occur
The Theory Behind Inversion Tables:
Clearly when you’re lying on an inversion table, gravity is working for you and acts on your back in the opposite direction to normal. In this position, the downward force of gravity elongates your spine and increases the space between vertebrae. This can relieve the pressure on your discs, ligaments and nerve roots and less pressure typically means less back pain.
Usage:
Most people start using an Inversion Table at a shallow angle for a few minutes at a time and then increase the angle and duration as they become accustomed to it.
Look at it this way, lying on an inversion table is a way to take a break and relax. Given that stress and tension are often a cause of muscle spasms in the back, neck and shoulders, anything that relieves this stress is likely to bring relief. An inversion table will provide a full body stretch that can help to reduce muscle tension.
Even inverting on a shallow angle for a few minutes can help relax tense muscles and speed the flow of lymphatic fluids. The job of your lymph system is to flush out your body’s wastes and carry them to the blood stream. Clear this waste, introduce fresh supplies of oxygen to your muscles stiffness and pain in the muscles should ease disappear.
Changing the subject slightly – this stimulation of your lymph system is one of the benefits of yoga. Yoga exercises and postures massage internal organs and stimulate blood and lymph flow. Some advanced yoga positions hold the body upside down e.g. various forms of head stands. However, an inversion table is certainly easier to use than learning yoga head stands!
Trying An Inversion Table
Reasonable quality inversion tables appear in the $150-$300 price range. Practitioner/professional quality tables go much higher than this - $500-$1,000, but my opinion that they’re overkill for the average domestic user. These are a good secondhand buy though, especially if you are an eBay wizard and can find one that has been lightly used.
In future posts we’ll look at the pros and cons of some different tables.
So in summary, you have little to lose from trying an inversion table and you may get significant relief from using one.
Using Fish Oil To Treat Back Pain
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A common message on this site is that your diet has a strong influence on your overall health and the condition of your back.
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!