OH my Aching Body - 7 - The Knee

Few people make it to middle age (let alone beyond) without some kind of knee problem, so this entry should be relevant to just about everyone. I’ll start with the basics. 

ANATOMY

The knee is a hinge joint, in that it bends and straightens. But like everything in human physiology, it’s more complicated than that. The tibia (shin bone) also does a slight amount of twisting. Additionally, there’s a knee cap, which increases the leverage of our quadriceps, making the thigh muscles more powerful than if they were connected to the shin bone without the knee cap.

Three bones make up the knee: the thigh bone (femur) is the top of the hinge, the shin bone (tibia) is the bottom of the hinge, and the knee cap (patella) is the insertion point for all the tendons of the quadricep muscles on the front of the thigh.

The femur doesn’t come into contact with the tibia, because of two cartilage disks that sit between the femur and tibia. These are the medial and lateral meniscus. 

They’re fibrous, spongy discs that keep the bones from wearing on one another. At the ends of the bones is a second kind of cartilage called articular cartilage. (By the way there’s a third type of cartilage that has nothing to do with joints. It’s the stiff tissue that gives shape to your ears and your nose. I don’t know why the experts didn’t come up with different Latin-sounding words for these three different kinds of tissue. After all, there’s about a dozen ways to refer to skin tissue. But I digress.) Back to articular cartilage. Bones are very strong because of how they’re constructed, and they’re lightweight, porous, and brittle. But the ends of the bones are smooth, like the surface of an ivory piano key. 

The knee joint is surrounded by a capsule, and inside the capsule is fluid, which acts like the oil or grease in a pinion joint.

The smooth piano key surfaces, lubricated by joint fluid, and protected from wear by fibrous discs, can handle a lot of force and torque.

But with an active lifestyle, or with misalignment, so many things can go wrong with the knee. 

CHONDROMALACIA

One of the most common knee problems is chondromalacia patella, or patello-femoral pain syndrome. To find out if you have this condition, sit down on a bed or table with your knee fully extended and your heel supported. Now trap your kneecap with the web of your hand between your thumb and forefinger, gliding your knee cap away from you. Now tighten your quadricep muscles and see what happens. In the photo below the examiner is pressing down much too hard on the distal quadriceps. The test doesn’t require that much force. 

Did your kneecap slide smoothly under your hand?

If yes, then you don’t have chondromalacia. 

Did you screamed in pain while your kneecap crunched like Rice Krispies as it passed under your hand? Or did your quadriceps muscles just quiver because they wouldn’t allow you to force your patella under your hand. Then the test was positive for patello-femoral pain syndrome.  

Several of my teen-age college soccer teammates had chondromalacia, so it’s a condition not necessarily connected to old age. But it is connected to chronic wear and tear of the underside of the knee cap, so it’s more common in young athletes who have poor alignment of their knee cap, with athletes who land on their knees or squat a lot (like goalkeepers and catchers), or with people who have been suffering misalignment of their bones for several decades. So age does factor in for many.

If you’ve ever seen an old piano, you’ve seen piano keys with the ivory surfaces chipped off. If two of those damaged keys were rubbed against each other, they will scrape and erode each another.

With chondromalacia, that’s what the bones of your knee are doing when they’ve lost that smooth articular cartilage. The bones wearing on one another cause a lot of joint inflammation and pain. Even though chondromalacia can happen in one’s youth, it is a progressive condition, so by middle age those knees are pretty irritated. If you have chondromalacia, you’re probably in for a lifetime of arthritic knee pain that will eventually be remedied with knee replacement surgery. 

KNEE SPRAINS

Ligaments are tough, inelastic bands of tissue that keep bones connected to one another. These are the tissues we shred when we sprain an ankle or dislocate a finger. The knee has four ligaments. One is on the inner side of the knee (medial collateral ligament, or MCL) to keep the knee from buckling inward. A second ligament is on the outside of the knee (lateral collateral ligament, or LCL) that keeps the knee from buckling outward. There are two ligaments inside the knee joint. The posterior cruciate ligament  (PCL) keeps the shin bone from sliding backwards, and the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) keeps the shin bone from sliding forwards. The image below shows the bones and ligaments of the right knee when viewed from the front. In this image the patella (knee cap) has been removed, because it would be blocking the cruciate ligaments.

If we put extraordinary stresses on our ligaments, the tissues will shred or snap, resulting in a sprain. If we sprain the MCL or LCL, we can put the knee into an immobilizer and let those tissues heal over a period of several weeks. While the ligaments are damaged, the knee will be unstable and will buckle, so keeping the knee immobilized is really important for healing.

Unlike the MCL or LCL, the ACL and PCL won’t heal no matter how long we immobilize them. These tissues exist within the knee joint, which doesn’t get much blood flow. Without blood there is little healing, so these ligaments have to be surgically reconstructed. 

You won’t hear about PCL tears very often, because damaging the PCL requires significant force to the front of the shin. This happens most often in sports when a football player tackles another player by diving into his knee and catches the tibia just below the knee. Another way to damage the PCL is when someone is in a car accident and their knees strike the dashboard but the rest of the body keeps going. It’s rare.

The ACL tear, on the other hand, is incredibly common. The ACL can be torn by simply planting the foot and changing directions. You may recall that Lindsey Vonn tore her ACL right before the Olympics when she crashed on a practice run. Adding skis to the feet increases torque on the knee joint, and often results in ACL injuries when the lower leg is twisted. 

A fast recovery from an ACL reconstruction surgery is 6 months, but return to play is more common at 9 months after reconstruction. The surgeon harvests a tendon from somewhere else in the knee – usually a hamstring tendon or part of the patellar tendon – and sews it to a grafting material to ensure that the graft won’t be rejected. Then a channel is drilled through the femur, and the new ligament is screwed into place. Tissues have to undergo a change in function from tendon to ligament, and if this process is hurried the new ligament will rupture again.

If someone decides to NOT have their ACL reconstructed, they’ll experience years of knee buckling. Guys my dad’s age used to talk about “my trick knee from the ol’ football days”. Those are guys who grew up before ACL reconstruction was an option, so every time they stepped left and turned right their knee would give out. Years of this excessive mobility between the bones usually results in bone deterioration and arthritis.

MENISCUS TEARS

The final conditions I’ll cover with this entry are meniscus tears. The fibrous discs of tissue that prevent the knee bones from wearing on one another have to endure a lot of stress every day. Occasionally, these discs will tear. When torn, the meniscus flap can cause the knee to lock, unable to bend or to straighten, as if a door stop was jammed into the joint. 

I’m going to whine about the repetitive use of the term “cartilage” again, because with the meniscus we have many different terms to describe how the meniscus tears. There’s the bucket handle tear, the parrot beak tear, the horizontal tear, and more. If you ask someone with a meniscus tear what happened, they’ll answer “I tore my cartilage.” 

One person who won’t say they have torn cartilage is Evander Holyfield, even though he had some of his cartilage torn off when Mike Tyson bit his ear. But that was a different type of cartilage. 

Remember that event? When Mike Tyson bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear, and then spit it onto the mat?! I swear this is true – the two of them teamed up and created a cannabis edibles product called “Mike Bites,” with gummies shaped like an ear with a bite out of it. Seriously. I swear. It’s crazy. If any of you tries one of these, please tell me if you experience an increase in bloodlust.

That feels like a good place to stop this entry. We’ve covered many of the nasty things that can happen to the knee, but certainly not all of them. If you want to know more about the knee, let me know. There are 14 bursae that can rupture, for example. There's arthritis. There's the ever-popular knee replacement surgery, which many of you already know about. Some knee problems require immobilization and rest, but several require surgery. The knee is so critical to everyday function and mobility that injury or arthritis results in significant change in one’s lifestyle. So keep those knees healthy, people. Keep moving!

 Oh My Aching Body - 6 - Spinal Discs

This month's article focuses on spinal discs: the fantastic function they provide every day without our acknowledgement, and the awful things that happen when something goes wrong with them. 

Article #4 of Oh My Aching Body is called "Back Pain." It talks about how difficult it is to discern the exact cause of back pain, because there are so many bones, ligaments, and muscles so close together. 

What that article didn't discuss at all was the vertebrae, the intervertebral discs, and the nerves. This article is a brief effort of explaining that. 

We separate the spine into five distinct parts. 

• There are 7 bones in the neck, which flex and rotate to allow impressive range of motion. We call this the cervical spine or c-spine. (Fun fact. Giraffes also have 7 vertebrae in their necks. But each giraffe neck vertebra is almost a foot tall, while the entire human neck averages is between 4.5" and 5" long.)
• There are 12 bones in the mid-back, which connect to the ribs. They don't do a lot of flexing or twisting, but they support the cage that protects our vital organs. We call this the thoracic spine.
• There are 5 bones in the low back. These bones are also capable of twisting and bending. We call this the lumbar spine.
• There are 5 bones fused into a single mass that connects the two sides of the pelvis to the spine. We call this the sacrum.
• Finally, there are the tiny bones referred to as "the tailbone." This "bone" is actually another 3-5 small bones that are fused together at the base of the spine. We call this the coccyx. (It's pronounced cock-six. Really.) The tailbone doesn't wag, so as tails go it's unimpressive. But the lack of wagging makes it possible to play poker without revealing your hand. 

I'm pausing here to draw your attention to the unique shapes of the vertebrae that allow for the incredible mobility of the neck and back, while simultaneously protecting the critical and vulnerable spinal cord. Every vertebra protects the spinal cord that runs through a channel behind the vertebral bodies. 

So despite the fact that it's incredibly flexible, allowing twisting and bending in multiple directions, our spine also protects the spinal cord when we do really stupid things.

The vertebrae are stacked on top of one another from the base of the skull to the tailbone. Between the vertebrae are discs that keep the bones from eroding each other. If the bones are compared to bricks in a wall, the discs are the mortar. When it comes to shape and structure, our discs can be compared to a jelly donut. The outer (donut) part is tough and rubbery, surrounding a soft, gelatin-like filling.

In the picture above you see the "jelly donut" disc, and right above it is the spinal cord, with spinal nerves emerging from it. Simply put, spinal nerves conduct sensations from the body up to the brain, and motor commands from the brain down to the body. 

But sometimes our discs aren't perfect, and those nerves become compromised.

Disc Herniation

If a disc is compressed repeatedly or forcefully, the jelly might squish out of the donut. Below is an image of a herniated disc. This is sometimes referred to as a "slipped disc" or "ruptured disc" or "protruding disc". It's all the same thing. The top view in the image below is looking down on the disc from above. The lower image is looking at the right side of the spine.

With a disc herniation, the jelly squishes out of the donut and pushes against a nerve root, so everything that nerve root innervates is getting mixed signals. With a compressed spinal nerve in your neck, you might feel zinging, tingling, or heat in your entire arm. The muscles might get weaker, because you don't have the ability to maximally contract the muscles that are powered by that nerve. When there's pain or numbness in a muscle, we tend to favor it and avoid using it. We might bend to one side or the other in an attempt to relieve the pressure, thus altering our postural alignment. Every time you bend your spine, it sends jelly out onto the nerve root, which sends a zing to whichever parts that nerve innervates. This results in stiffness, muscle guarding, and limited range of motion.

To relieve pressure on the nerve, we need to get the jelly off of it. 

In the donuts above, the jelly is being contained nicely within the donuts. Imagine slowly compressing one of those donuts between your thumb and fingers. The jelly starts to ooze slowly out of the jelly hole. There's a point at which you can release your compression, pressing on the sides instead of top and bottom. With this counter-pressure, the jelly gets sucked back into the donut. You can do this at home with a toothpaste tube. Slight pressure sends the toothpaste slightly out of the tube, but pressure on the other sides of the tube sucks it back in.

This is why we use traction in the physical therapy clinic. Creating space between the vertebrae might allow the nucleus of the disc to return to where it belongs. For the neck we place a special strap around the chin and base of the skull, then attach the other end to a traction unit that pulls on the skull for about 20 minutes. As the muscles of the neck relax, the traction unit separates the vertebrae, and the patient experiences relief from the disc's pressure on the nerve root. The amount of weight on the traction unit is in the 20-50 pound range.

We do the same thing for the low back, but the muscles are so much thicker and stronger in the low back that we use 20% to 50% of the patient's body weight in pulling strength. For a 200 pound patient we'd use up to 100 pounds of traction, so to keep the patient from being pulled off the table we have to anchor the rib cage to the top of the treatment table. 

Traction works for a lot of patients. Many will feel gradual relief over a period of several visits. A handful will feel immediate relief. 

But for those who have squished out too much jelly, they won't experience any relief at all. 

When your disc looks like the donut above, no amount of counter-pressure will suck the jelly back in. At this point you'll need a surgeon to remove the jelly that's pressing on the nerve. This is called a discectomy. Sometimes this procedure is done with an incision and tissue spreaders, and other times with a much smaller incision and a scope.

When the spongy center of the jelly donut is removed, that gel-like nucleus doesn't grow back. Instead, it is replaced with scar tissue that is less voluminous and less yielding, which results in less mobility of the spine at that spinal level, and less height between the vertebrae. This leads to a higher risk of compression of the nerves emerging between these vertebrae, and quicker degeneration of the disc. Over time, more problems emerge. You already know this: as we age we get more problems with our aching bodies.

Degenerative Disc Disease

Almost everyone over the age of 40 has some degeneration in their discs. This is the main cause of people becoming shorter as they age. There are 23 discs in the spine, so if each one only compresses 1/8" over a lifetime, it will translate to a total of 3" reduction in height. In fact, if you measure yourself in the morning, you'll likely be taller than you are at night. This is due to the compression of the discs throughout the day.

When a disc becomes too damaged to simply clean up the squished out jelly part, it has to be removed entirely. But the bones can't be left to just rub against each other. Options include fusing the spinal vertebrae together with bone or with metal (or both), or replacing the damaged disc.

The most common procedure is the most limiting. To fuse the vertebrae together, the surgeon first places a spacer between the vertebrae. This helps to maintain the space needed to keep from compressing the nerves emerging from between the vertebrae. With that spacer in place, the surgeon removes some bone from the hip (the part where moms rest their hands while scolding) and fuses it to the space between the vertebrae. 

An alternative to spinal fusion with a bone graft is spinal fusion with metal hardware. 

The vertebrae now have no motion at those levels. They are essentially a single, tall vertebra. If you've ever seen a giraffe try to drink water, you know why it's not ideal to have tall vertebrae. Giraffes don't have very much range of motion in those long necks.

 

Additionally, if you don't have any motion at one level of the spine, that need for motion gets transferred to the other levels of the spine, putting more of a demand on the other vertebrae, which speeds the deterioration at those levels. 

An option that doesn't involve fusing the vertebrae is replacement of the deteriorated disc. The disc might come from a cadaver, or it might be a synthetic disc. Replacement with a synthetic is more common than the use of a donor disc, and it carries fewer problems.

With this procedure they carefully measure the angle, circumference, and height of the space between the two vertebrae, then implant a metal plate into the bones above and below that space, then insert a rubbery prosthetic disc into the space between the metal plates.

Following any type of surgery on the spine, there are significant recovery steps involved, with some period of rest followed by physical therapy. But once recovered, people who have experienced disc replacement or spinal fusion are usually much better off in function and quality of life than before the surgery. Having your nerve roots pressed is a terribly uncomfortable thing, so measures as drastic as fusing the spine or inserting synthetic discs are really complicated, and yet preferable to the alternative.

To summarize, spines are super complicated. If you're having chronic back pain, it might be addressed in one of the two posts I've dedicated to back pain so far, or it might be caused by one of the myriad other conditions I haven't even mentioned. (Spondylolisthesis, spondylolisis, arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, foraminal stenosis, and other difficult to pronounce conditions are plentiful.) If you're having pain in your back, and especially if it's causing pain or function loss in your extremities, please go see an orthopedic specialist and find out what's wrong. There's a good chance they can figure things out and get you on the road to recovery. Don't expect a quick fix, but also don't resign yourself to a life of limitation or pain.

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Is there another topic you'd like to see addressed here? Let me know!

Oh My Aching Body - 5 - Lindsey Vonn

 

Does anyone else glue themselves to the TV during Olympic season?

Was anyone else super excited to watch Lindsey Vonn return to the slopes as a 41 year-old who had just become the oldest skier ever to win a World Cup?

I was.

She came out of retirement after a RIGHT knee replacement that relieved the terrible pain she had been experiencing on the slopes for so many years.

On January 30th, the week before her Olympic run, she blew out her LEFT ACL and bruised the bone and tore the meniscus in her left knee. I'll talk more about ACL injuries in a future blog post. But for now let's say it's an injury that requires reconstruction through surgery, and usually requires 6-9 months of rehabilitation before someone can do any strenuous activity. It's a ligament that gives the knee stability, and without it, the knee will buckle and "give out." Lindsey was skiing without it.

When she injured her left ACL on January 9th, Lindsey Vonn was no stranger to ACL injuries and knee instability. 

I was stunned that she was racing without an ACL in her knee only 9 days after tearing it. I was watching eagerly when she launched out of the gate. 

A few seconds later I was really bummed when she fell, as skiers often do.

But then she didn't do what most skiers do when they fall. She didn't get up with an angry or frustrated expression and glide off the run in disappointment and defeat. 

No. She just laid there on the mountain and screamed.

The rest of the mountain was silent.

...until the helicopter entered the area, and deployed an emergency team that packed her up and flew her in for emergency surgery.

At the time of her crash they didn't have a lot of information. A bit later they announced that she was in stable condition with a fractured leg. But they were still very short on details. Which leg bone? The femur would make sense, based on how she was screaming but wasn't moving at all. Femur (thigh bone) fractures are very painful, and people generally stay very still when they break a thigh bone. Maybe it was a boot-top fracture, which is common for skiers. A ski boot keeps the ankles very stable, but with skis acting as extended levers, any twisting of the leg will put all the torque above the boot. The result is commonly a fracture of the leg right at the top of the boot.

 The x-ray above shows a boot-top fracture. In this instance, both leg bones are broken like a stick.

Lindsey Vonn's leg didn't break like a stick. It broke like a vase. It didn't crack. It shattered. It didn't need a cast. It needed pins, screws, plates, and rods, over the course of a six hour bone reconstruction surgery.

That kind of bone-shattering injury is horrible enough, but that wasn't the worst of it in this case. The biggest problem Lindsey Vonn faced was the compression syndrome that nearly caused doctors to have to amputate her leg.

In the first installment of Oh My Aching Body, I talked about the benefits of compression when there's an injury. When an ankle is sprained and starts to swell, we wrap it with an elastic wrap to keep the swelling to a minimum. We wrap the injury with elastic wrap, not inelastic wrap. We don't wrap the elastic wrap too tightly, and we keep checking circulation to the toes with a quick squeeze of the toe at the toenail, to look for the quick return of color, and therefore circulation, to the toes. Compression can have benefits, but too much compression can cause tissue death.

Compression is both the result and cause of significant injury when there's damage to tissues in the leg. There are ten muscles in the lower leg, and they are grouped into four separate compartments, each surrounded by a layer of fascia. No other part of the body has this compartmentalization. If a muscle in the leg is injured and begins to swell, there's nowhere for the swelling to go because of the inelastic fascial layer surrounding the muscles. Blood collects in the compartment, squashing all the encapsulated muscles, nerves, and blood vessels. 

For Lindsey Vonn, the biggest problem she faced was not the serious damage to the bone, but the swelling within the compartments of her leg. To relieve the pressure, doctors needed to make incisions to the fascia, to open the leg compartments in what is known as a fasciotomy.

Those of us who were checking the news were hearing that Vonn had six surgeries before being flown out of Italy. The first several surgeries were just at attempt to prevent the amputation of her leg. 

It worked. The first doctors saved her leg. Then the reconstruction of the bones began. That worked, too.  She's on the road to recovery and posting Instagram reels of her physical therapy routine.

Some people have guessed that this injury happened because she's an older skier and her bones are less equipped to handle that kind of impact. 

• It didn't. 
• Lindsey Vonn was in peak physical condition, and her bone density was epic, thanks in great part to the impact her bones have sustained over the many years she has been on skis. If you read "Dem Bones, Dem Bones" in a previous blog post, I mentioned a study where third graders simply stomped their feet 100 times per day and had noticeable increases in bone density. Imagine flying through the air and landing on your feet at 40-60 miles per hour repeatedly. Lindsey's bones weren't frail.

Some people have surmised this injury happened because she had already blown out her ACL 9 days earlier. 

• It didn't.
• She explained that she was cutting the flag tight because the previous skiers had put down such amazing times, and by cutting the flag too close she ended up with her ski getting caught up in the flag pole. That kind of collision could have thrown any skier, and the torque from the twist on her left leg could have destroyed anyone's bone.

In summary, what we saw on February 9th was a once-in-a-generation bad-ass on the slopes in Cortina. Her preparation was impeccable, her comeback was incredible, her crash was terrible, the emergency response was perfect, the emergency fasciotomy surgery saved her leg, and the orthopedist reconstructed her leg beautifully. Thanks to all of those things, Lindsey Vonn will be walking and running and probably skiing again on both of her own legs someday soon.

But we probably won't get to see her in the Olympics anymore, according to her dad.

...We'll see.

Oh, My Aching Body - 4 - Back Pain

When a patient comes into a physical therapy clinic with a doctor’s prescription for physical therapy, it includes a diagnosis. It might say “Right Knee Torn Medial Meniscus” or “Left Shoulder Supraspinatus Tendinitis.” But more often than not, when someone came into the physical therapy clinic where I worked for their back, the diagnosis was “Back Pain.” 

But that’s not a diagnosis. It’s a symptom. Here’s another medical terminology tidbit:

Symptom - something that someone complains of. 

Symptoms include:

• Nausea

• Pain

• Tingling

• Numbness

• Sharp pain

• Dull ache

• Throbbing

Sign - Something that someone else can detect. 

Signs include:

• Redness

• Swelling

• Loss of range of motion

• Bleeding

• Vomiting

• Temperature increases

• Deformity

Pain isn’t a diagnosis. It’s a symptom that forces someone to see the the doctor, hoping that the doctor would provide a diagnosis and tell them what’s causing the pain.

This “pain” diagnosis is unique to back problems. We never got a “knee pain” diagnosis. It would say “Torn Meniscus”. A person presenting with foot pain would have a diagnosis that said “Plantar Fasciitis,” not “Foot Pain”. 

But not with back pain, and here’s why:

ANATOMY:

Imagine you have a cadaver in your college athletic training room supply closet. (We did.) You work on this human cadaver, making incisions in the skin to reveal all the tendons of the hand, all the muscles of the arms and legs, the tendons and muscles of the neck and shoulder, and the incomprehensible complexity of the low back. If you peel back the skin on the cadaver’s low back, then take your pinky and put it into the back musculature, your pinky won’t be as deep as the muscles along the spine. No other muscle group is as deep.

These muscles form an incredible support network for the trunk. The muscles in the front of the spine help the spine bend (flex), the muscles behind the spinal column help your spine straighten (extend). There are even tiny little muscles between the bony prominences of each vertebra. Beyond just helping you bend and straighten, they keep you upright, instead of flopping around like one of those inflatable tube men.

No core stabilization.

But that’s just the muscles! Wait until you see all the ligaments that connect the vertebrae together!

Now let’s imagine that you lunge for a backhand shot on the pickleball court and you feel a twinge in your low back. After a few minutes your back gets really stiff and it hurts every time you move. No matter which ligament or tendon you’ve injured, the signs and symptoms will be the same. It’s impossible to determine exactly which tissue is injured, but fortunately, if your disc isn’t involved (that’s a whole different ball of wax), our approach to your low back injury will be the same no matter which tissue you’ve just jacked up.

By now, if you’ve read the previous articles, you know what’s coming. The approach to virtually any muscle strain or ligament sprain is R.I.C.E.: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. But there are some real complications to that approach when it comes to the low back.

REST: If someone comes to me with an ankle sprain I can provide crutches, tell them to stop using the injured side to walk, and the rest of their function will be just fine. They can go to work or school, sit in a chair with their foot on another chair, go to the store, hang out with friends, and even drive if the injury is to the left ankle. But a back strain gets worse if you just stand, because keeping you upright is the job of your spinal muscles. Sitting is even worse, because strain on the low back muscles is doubled when you go from standing to sitting. To really rest a low back injury, you’ll have to lay on your back with your knees elevated so that there’s a 90° angle at the hips and knees. 

This position is excellent for resting a low back injury, but it’s incredibly limiting! You can’t use the restroom without aggravating the injury, let alone pick up a child or grandchild. You can’t sneeze without increasing back pain, and you can’t stand at the stove and cook dinner. You can’t go up or down stairs without significant strain to the low back. The low back muscles are involved in EVERY MOTION. You can’t put a cast on it or immobilize it, so you have to just lie still and stop doing EVERYTHING (except using the restroom) for several days after a “back pain” diagnosis.

ICE: Going back to that sprained ankle, I can use ice packs or even a cold ice bucket to cool an ankle and reduce the swelling to the area. But ice packs penetrate only about ½” below your skin, …if you’re pretty lean. If you have a bit of a spare tire around your middle, the cold might not cool the muscles beneath the skin at all. With a group of muscles that are deeper than your pinky, how effective will an ice pack really be? Moist cold is more effective than dry cold, so let’s use an ice towel instead. You put crushed ice inside of a towel, then lay on it. But even with a moist towel we’re talking about ¾” in a lean person. It’s still recommended to apply ice, because even if it doesn’t penetrate to the injured muscles, it will draw heat out, reducing the surrounding temperature at least a bit.

COMPRESSION: When someone has a sprained ankle I can compress it with an ace wrap to prevent the increase in swelling to the area. With a back injury we can apply a supportive belt, but that just provides stability and won’t decrease the swelling to the area. There is no compressing a low back injury.

ELEVATION: With an ankle sprain I can tell the injured athlete to lay on a couch with the foot higher than the heart. This slows circulation to the area and reduces the amount of swelling that will go to the ankle. It’s not possible to elevate a low back above the heart when there’s a low back injury. The best we can do is lie flat.

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TREATMENT

As mentioned above, the best approach to the first few days of a low back strain or sprain include calling in to work, lay on your back with your lower legs elevated, tuck a cold pack under your low back for 20 minutes every hour or two, and have someone else bring you your favorite books, the remote control, and your meals. 

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T ADD HEAT!

Not for at least 3 days.

Heat packs and warm baths will penetrate twice as deep into the tissues as cold packs for some reason, and if you read the first installment of “Oh, My Aching Body,” you’ll know why you should absolutely avoid adding heat. But you know what else adds heat? Motion. Exercise. Massage. Theragun. Even just laying still without adding cold will be adding heat.

PREVENTION

The best ways to avoid a back injury is to use your legs and stabilize your core. 

Use Your Legs: If you’re picking something up off the floor, bend your knees instead of your back. If you’re on the pickleball court, the same rules apply. Try to lower your hips, keep your back straight, and move to the ball with your feet, not by reaching for the ball by bending and twisting your back.

Stabilize Your Core: The muscles of the back and abdomen work to support your torso on your pelvis. Pilates is the ultimate approach to core stabilization, but that can’t be attempted until your back injury has healed. The exercises we used in the physical therapy clinic included very simple things like pelvic tilts, where you lay on a table or bed on your back with your knees bent and feet on the table, then tighten your abdominal muscles so that the spine of your low back touches the matt, and your tailbone lifts off the table. Repeat for three sets of ten, holding each for 5 seconds. That’s it. You can’t push your heels into the table to push your tailbone upward. It all has to be done with your abdominal muscles. You’d be amazed at how many people found this very difficult. Once you can do this, you can graduate to lifting one foot a few inches off the table for five seconds. If your pelvis starts to drop when you pick up your foot, you’re not ready. Reset your pelvis and pick up the foot again. Then alternate. Eventually you’ll graduate to the “dead bug” exercise. (I didn’t name it, but I wish I did.)

Pelvic Tilt exercise. The foundation of all pelvic stabilization to protect the low back.

This is the dead bug exercise.

Next are the exercises where you’re on your hands and knees, you set your spine so that there’s no movement side to side when you lift one hand forward off the table, and hold it for 5 seconds. Then the other hand. Once that’s mastered, send one knee backward and hold the leg straight for 5 seconds, then slowly lower it. Once you can do that, you can lift one arm and the alternate leg, keeping the core stable and your body balanced on the table.

In addition to these exercises there are important muscle balance issues often involved in back problems. If the front of the hips and the back of the thighs are tight, this throws the pelvis into an arched position. Stretching the hip flexors and hamstrings is the opposite of what happens when you’re sitting, so a good thing to do is get your hips and hamstrings into the opposite position of sitting.

Here’s more exercises to protect your low back, for those who are feeling really motivated. 

If you have a back injury that nags at you regularly, it’s best to get a physical therapist to guide you through how to correct your posture, your movement, your alignment, and your muscle balance (stabilization and flexibility). It’ll make it less likely that you’ll hurt yourself again, and it will improve your pickleball, too!

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Do you have another aching-body topic you’d like to know more about? The last two articles were my response to requests from your fellow PIKL members, but now I’ve run out of requests. Please feel free to let me know what you’d like to know more about!