Let Louisiana Pain Specialists help!
It’s fully summer in South Louisiana, with its hot, muggy days and afternoon thunderstorms. Maybe it’s just the time of year, or maybe it’s the improved housing market, but it seems like a lot of people are moving these days. And that means the dreaded request for ‘just a few hours of your time’ helping friends move, in exchange for the typical pizza and beer.
If you prefer to keep your Saturdays free for other pursuits (or simply laying on the couch enjoying your air conditioning), Louisiana Pain Specialists have a message for you: HELPING YOUR FRIENDS MOVE CAN BE DANGEROUS. We don’t just mean your friends who collect hazardous antique war relics or have a yard full of rabid dogs (although we might question your choice of friends). We mean your normal friends who have normal furniture like couches, beds, refrigerators, and dressers.
Lifting heavy loads without attaining a suitable level of core fitness and without proper technique can cause several types of injury:
- Muscle strain (pulled muscle) – when the muscles are overstretched or torn.
- Lumbar sprain – when the ligaments of the lower back are stretched too far or torn.
- Abdominal hernia
- Bulging disk
- Herniated disk
- Sciatica
We urge you to consider the numbers, and share them with your nomadic friends:
- Four out of five people will suffer from back pain at some point in their life.
- Every year, back pain is one of the top five reasons for an ER visit in the United States.
- Picking up a ten pound object by hinging at your waist can put over a thousand pounds of pressure on your lower back.
- There are only nine weekends left in summer.
We suggest you pitch in to help your friends hire moving professionals, and head to the beach! But, if there’s no way around it, or you are just moving one or two big items, follow these tips to stay safe and keep your back healthy:
- Prepare for lifting by warming up beforehand. An Olympic weightlifter would never lift without warming up, and neither should you! Move around and stretch some before starting.
- Decrease the weight of the load. Remove contents and drawers from dressers and take the mattress out of sofa beds before moving them.
- Don’t be a hero. Never lift anything heavy alone.
- When lifting, stand close to the load, and keep the load close to your body while carrying it.
- Use your abdominal and leg muscles when lifting. Do not hinge at the waist.
- Rest in the air conditioning between lifting heavy items. The more fatigued your muscles are, the more likely you are to get injured.
We hope you stay safe and back pain free this summer! If you do develop chronic or acute low back pain (or any other type of pain for that matter), Louisiana Pain Specialists is here to help! Call us to schedule an appointment!