Top Natural Back Pain Remedies for Holistic Relief

I had severe back pain years ago. When standing up from a seated position, I could only do so very gingerly. If I were walking my back would give out and I would go down on my knees.

Part of my job is interviewing authors when they are in town for a radio station and pod casts.

One day there was a book that came in the mail that was called Your Bodies Many Cries For Water written by Dr Batmanglelde. His book was a lifesaver for my back and he has an interesting story.

I increased my water intake and this worked a miracle on my back. It is not an instant cure like many on this web site but this really works.

Be sure to take your 8 glasses of water or more for great results

I had slept on a bad mattress for one night too many. I woke up one day with sharp pains in my back. It made work very difficult, but I figured it would eventually go away on it's own. No dice. One day, after a week of back pain, I took about 1/2 teaspoon of DMSO to help my immune system recover after Lyme. I didn't realize it at first, but the back pain was gone within hours (probably sooner), and it NEVER came back! I even slept on that bad mattress again! lol not smart...

I should also add that some people are very sensitive to the smell of DMSO, and I "offended" at least one person.

Benefits of using Sesame Oil for Oil Pulling Therapy

I tried Sesame Oil after experiencing severe back pain from a tramatic injury to my tailbone and my coccyx bone became misaligned, which caused severe pain when I'm sitting down. I also have chronic knee pain, stomach pains, occasional headaches and an infection on the right side of my mouth. I began the oil pulling therapy on July 21, 2009 and after 3-4 weeks I saw a noticeable decrease in my back pain. I used to have difficulty being seated for periods longer than one hour and had horrible pain after riding in a car or driving for long distances. I have experienced such remarkable improvements in my results that I was able to drive from Georgia to Maryland with no pain in my back or my knee, 5 weeks after I began oil pulling therapy. I no longer have headaches or pain in my stomach. I have also noticed that the pain in my mouth is gone because the infection has obviously disappeared!! I feel absolutely wonderful that I am now pain-free and I have accomplished this without surgery or chemical drugs and medication. I am happy to say that my girlfriend and family members have now begun oil pulling therapy.

Hello Lita209

I apologize but I don't have a picture of this technique. Actually, I'm not sure a picture would help because all it would be is a person bending over and straightening up -again and again.

However, it's not complicated. My back pain was concentrated in my lower back so that's the area this exercize focuses on. If you bend over, your upper body is heavy. Raising and lowering your upper body will work your lower back. When people stand, they generally have a natural curve to their lower spine.

This curve points to the front, the way they are facing. (I have seen people who have poor posture have a backwards curve to the spine). Anyway, when you bend over, your body should bend like a folding knife, two straight lines at an angle to each other, and the natural curve of your lower back should now point downward.

Your legs should be straight and, when you bend, you should feel a stretching all the way down the backs of your legs. When you lower your upper body (start to bend) you should feel it pull the muscles in your lower back which was a scary feeling - at the time - for a chronic back sufferer like me. That is why you only bend over just a little bit at a time.

Do not use the middle of your back to bend and do not round your back. Keep your back straight all the way from your butt to your neck. As you lower your upper body to touch the marks on your legs, you will feel the muscles in your LOWER BACK stretch as you move downward to the marks. This means you are using only your lower back muscles to lower your entire upper body.

Then as you raise your upper body back to an upright, erect posture, you will feel the muscles in your lower back contract. If you keep your entire back straight - all the work is being done by the muscles in your lower back. This felt strange to me when I first tried it and I realized that I had been avoiding using these muscles for years. In my case, when I used to have back problems, these muscles were constantly tense and I used the muscles in my middle back or sides to bend - if I did any bending at all.

The 'ball point pen method' is pretty much exactly what the doctors tell you not to do when they advise 'pick up something by bending your knees and not your knees - not your back'. Well, I agree with them that if you are picking up something really heavy then you don't want to overload your back but, excuse me, your upper body is definately supposed to be lifted by healthy strong and flexible lower back muscles.

One more way of looking at the exercize is this: Think of the natural curve of your lower back pointing downward as you bend. You will feel this curve increase as you raise your upper body. You will feel this curve flatten as you lower your upper body. You will feel your lower back muscles expand and contract. You should not feel the muscles in your middle or upper back doing anything.

I hope this helps, good luck, Redou.

Redou: Do you have a picture that explains this exercise? I cannot understand it. Thank you!

I am so happy to have found this castor oil remedy that I wish I could get the WORLD on board with it!!!! After going to doctor's, chiropracters using exercise, yoga, stretching, motrin, muscle relaxers to boot; I finally have something that truly deals with the symptoms for an injured lower back which flares up from time to time as well as neck and shoulder soreness which leads to significant tightness and discomfort.

My symptoms have been significantly reduced and my painful days are few and far between and I do not even use the full castor oil pack method as right now I do not have a heating pad...I improvised with a warm wet rag and a microwaveable bean bag and I am feeling much, much better than I ever have before. Typically during my menstrual cycle I am plagued by a lower back throbbing and discomfort and this month it is very minimal if anything at all and this is amazing!!!!

I also tried it out for bruising and again it worked wonders on cutting down on bruise life as well as soreness, discoloration (most of my bruising lasts at least a week but with castor oil right away it's perhaps 2 days and with more time passing before I get to it perhaps around 3.5 days.....WOW!!!!

If I could I would bathe in castor oil each and every day!!!!

Dear April, I suggest you look into non-surgical spinal decompression. My Chiropractor does it in her office. I've never had it done, but I know she has been able to help others a lot. It may not work for what you have, but it would sure be worth checking to see if someone in your area does the treatment. Good Luck!

I have experienced bad back pain ever since junior year of high school where during a heavy lifting session I injured my back. After spending a lot of money on drugs and physical therapists, I can truly say nothing works better than just eliminating diary from my diet, sleeping on the floor, and doing several ab exercises. I have been doing these three things for the last two months and have noticed a significant reduction in my lower back pain. For those of you who complain they can enjoy the favorite breakfast foods without milk I suggest trying rice or soy milk or If you don't care like me just use water.

Hi there, I just want to share that since I was born I can immediately had back pain because of my poor immune system but I naturally gained my full strenght when I became an athlete...But when I stop playing because of my work in office, no exercise, everyday is the thing that I must face and accept the pain in my back before I go to sleep. For now, even the weather is cold here and even I don't have time to go to gym, one thing effective that I usually do is when I get sweat.. It's true! Perspiration is the best remedy and cure for back pain because backpains maybe due to over fatigue at work, weather and that at times the pain will almost come accross the stomach that you'll feel that you want to vomit...the only thing you can do aside from massage is perspiration...drinking tea will also help.

I'm not a doctor, THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE, I'm only telling you what happened to me. Consult you doctor before you try anything. If you get hurt, don't waste your time suing me, you won't get much.

This post will probably be too long for most readers, but if you have LOWER BACK PAIN, I want you to know that I understand what you're going through.

I fixed my LOWER BACK PAIN with a BALL POINT PEN - no, I didn't write a check. First some background and then I'll get to the point. I had back pain for 28 years - from age 17 to age 45. I'm 53 now and except for a couple of 'twinges' NO PAIN IN 8 YEARS. I spent an average of 3 days a month on my back. I had pain 75% of the time. I used to pee in a jar because it hurt too bad to get up and go to the bathroom.

My wife had to put on my shoes and tie them for me. To pick up something, I had to get down, slowly, on my knees and only if it wasn't heavy. I used to pay $80 for a hotel room just to get out of the car. I never slept in the hotel bed. I slept on the hard floor.

I couldn't do a lot of things like camping or hiking or dancing. I thought of myself as a cripple. I lived in fear of that pain, like a knife in my lower back, making me go to the ground. I never knew when it was going to hit.

I went to doctors and chiropractors and spent a lot of money. Had a lot of X-Rays done. I'll probably die of cancer. I was told that: - one leg was longer than the other (chiropractor) - I needed special shoes or lifts in my shoes (chiropractor) - I had a herniated disc (doctor) - I had soft tissue damage (doctor) - I had cracked vertebrae (doctor) - I needed surgery (at least 3 doctors)

I tried:

- heating pads (temporary relief)
- popping my own back (sometimes temporary relief, sometimes made it worse)
- bed rest - or on the floor rest (sometimes back to work the next day, sometimes 3 days to a week on my back)
- stretching exercizes prescribed by doctors (useless)
- very hot baths (temporary relief often followed by worse pain)
- TENS unit - electric stimulation - I bought one (temporary relief)
- heat, TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation)followed with 'manupulation' (back popping) by chiropractors (temporary relief, usually followed by pain shortly thereafter or the next day
- hard mattresses, soft mattresses, hard chairs, soft chairs (hard chairs worked better for me)

I never ate any pills except over-the-counter muscle relaxors. I won't eat a pain pill. Too easy to get addicted.

Ok. I'm getting to the point:

One day I'm lying on the floor, missing work. My girlfriend is looking at the computer and trying to help me. She is reading about a home remedy for back pain. I'm telling her don't waste yourtime, go in the bedroom, there's a stack of books in there about back pain. Some by a girl named Zimmerman, if memory serves. I think it was a British physical therapist that told me about this cure, but with the pain, and not thinking clearly I really can't remember. Whoever it was, they have my eternal gratitude.

What the person on the net was recommending:

- wait until your pain gets better, don't start fixing it while you're having a lower back pain episode.
- Once your back gets back to 'normal' (for me that meant I was able to work around the pain, go to work, go somewhere)- Then get a ball point pen.
- Drop your drawers, bend over until you just start to feel scared. (most back sufferers don't like to bend over, that's often when the pain hits you)
- Place your fingers on your thighs, flat in the front, and make a mark with the pen where your middle finger touches your thighs one mark on each leg. Don't bend below where you feel comfortable (meaning don't go below the mark)
- DON'T Wash the marks off.
- For the next week, BENDING ONLY AT THE HIPS, KEEPING YOUR LOWER BACK STRAIGHT - TOUCH THOSE TWO MARKS 100 TIMES EVERY DAY.
- Don't do it all at once, ten here, twenty there, and only if you feel safe doing it.
- After a week , if you feel comfortable with it, make a mark 1/2 inch (THAT'S ONE HALF OF AN INCH) below the first marks and now spend a week touching those new marks 100 times a day.
- You can see where this is going - All the way down to your toes.
- I took three months to do it.
- If you do it at 1/2 inch at a time it will probably take you a year, (I think the person who invented this was being overly cautious and trying to make sure no one got hurt)

Anyway, after 3 months of touching the slowly descending marks 100 times a day, I could touch my toes. Without fear. (But I would kind of work my way down each day) I had not bent over and touched my toes for 28 years. Now I could do it every day. And I still do it now. The lower back pain was (and is) GONE.

1) My theory - the reason this works - is that I had babied my back for years and the right muscles, the ones that are supposed to hold you up and aid in flexing and extending a person's back - were WEAK. I realized that all the treatments I had tried only treated the SYMPTOMS and did not solve the PROBLEM - my WEAK back. Also, I was able to function for many years with a bad back, but I believe I was using the WRONG MUSCLES. When my back was locked up, my spine was crooked, the wrong muscles were trying to do a job they were not intended for. Also, and this is important, I don't believe I had any real DAMAGE to my back, nothing broken or torn, that is why I think anyone who wants to try this should go to their doctor and make sure nothing is broken first.

I still touch my toes 100 times a day, twenty here, ten there. I keep a concrete block outside my back door and every now and then I bend down and lift it WITH MY BACK, not with my knees like the doctors say. DON'T TRY THIS YOURSELF. Now my back is strong, my muscles are flexible, and circulation in that area is good. Weak muscles are TENSE and have poor circulation. STRONG muscles are flexible and have good circulation.

Another thing I believe is that many back sufferers are stressed out people, their stress shows up in muscle tension. I don't think that is the only reason for back problems, but I believe stress is a major contributor.

GOOD LUCK
REDOU

I have a direct feedback from a couple of users of Inversion table for their back problems, while it goes away rather quickly it keeps coming back. The maximum time in reducing the problem is 4 days and then it comes again. It's no permanent solution otherwise they had to go to the hospital again and again or had to buy the machine. That's not the CAUSE of the problem. The problem is the muscles pull on the back along with the usual weight problem, but it's always the excess calcium in the muscle tissue and the nerves that causes the muscle pull back and "contract" causing a back problem. If it happens long enough it can cause spinal "compression".. To reverse this and see the result significantly is to just take the magnesium supplements. Not just any magnesium supplement, but the water soluble kind. The worse magnesium supplements I have ever seen is sold in most drug store, and if I read their ingredient, it's mostly worthless, such as magnesium phosphate, magnesium oxide and magnesium carbonate. These have very poor water solubility and is not bioavailable. Whenever the added wax on top of that to keep the tablets in nice form, they also block the absorption such as mangesium stearate. The other thing that prevents magnesium from being utilized is the problem of calcium carbonate or any calcium that is mixed in the supplements.

The best form of magnesium I have found are magnesium chloride has the least of the problem and the magnesium gluconate. After taking them sa 100-250 mg the muscle pain will be reduced within 30 minutes and most is gone by the third or fourth day, including the back pain. The key to using these forms of magnesium is to dilute with plenty of water so it won't have the laxative effect and cannot be mixed with any alkaline preparations such as baking soda or citrates. The magnesium is taken solo. One simple way to take it that I h ave used for the fastest acid reflux remedy is the magnesium solution at 60-80% plus distilled water at 20%-40% and prepare as a dropper where the dose is between 6-12 drops in a glass of water depending on your size the dose is adjusted accordingly. For example a person of 120 pounds will likely take 5 drops but a person twice that weight likely to take 10 drops in a glass of water. I prepare in dilutions such as this to prevent the laxative effect and hence greater magnesium absorption. This is the best of all remedies for most of the back pain problem I have noticed without the use of pain killers.

Ted

Hi for my back, I was told this by my doc....An I quote he say I will tell you what is wrong with your back in 20 minutes. WOW I thought. ( 1st let me tell you about him, he is old school, he is 75 yrs young...lol) Any way he took ex-rays, on my lower back an legs an show me on my legs, he put a ruler on the ex-rays an showed me that one leg was almost 1/4 inch shorter than the other, an wrote a script to go to the leather shop an make me a lift out of leather. (about the middle of the foot to the heal, an slipped in under my shoe liner) Well that day I ask him, how come other doc's did not know this an he said......O Mitch they did know, that it would put them out of business, he said that the doc would send you home, WITH DRUGS, an come back next week, for a check up. (PAID HIM TWICE). Also he said that the Chiropractor would like me to keep coming back all the time so they could make alot of money. So then I ask him how is it that one leg is shorter than the other, an he told me that most people have that problem, cause as you are growing, you most of the time carry everything on one side. (exsample If you are RIGHT HANDED that the right leg would be shorter.......now this made sense to me cause I am LEFT HANDED an my left leg WAS shorter than the other. PRETTY SMART HUH well it made sense to me. Needless to say my back was much better, an has been for yrs, hardly ever any pain unless I over do it. An o did i tell you that I was in terrible pain for 11 yrs, an I seen all kind of doctors, also 4 chiroprators. My doc told me no offence to you but I would just like to see you only twice a year for your check ups. Great doctor huh! Well I hope this info my help some one out, it worked for me. I really like this site.

You may want to consider using honey instead of sugar. Just a thought.

Found some roll on DMSO in a closet I was cleaning out and found your website. I have lower back pain and I put some on it. Already, it feels good! Thank you, Lucinda

I have found that the best way to relieve lower back pain is to do early morning stretching. After one week of this simple exercise, lower back pain is gone:

1. Start by lying flat on your back on the floor or a hard flat surface.

2. Lift your right knee up and forward touching your chin or moving the knee as close as possible to the chin.

3. Hold you right knee up to your chin with both hands and stay in that position for at least 15 seconds.

4. Do the same thing with the left knee back and forth for about 20 minutes.

5. Relax the body and the lower back pain will be gone in a few days.

Blessings to you!

My husband has been having upper back and shoulder pain so bad that he can't sleep at night. He's tried all kinds of pain killers without any effect. Last night I put some DMSO on his back and his skin blistered up and his pain doubled. Can anyone tell me what we did wrong? I used a roll-on applicator that the DMSO came in and didn't put much on at all. I did, however, buy it at a feed store. Did I buy the wrong type?

I was pleasantly surprised it worked! Every winter I suffer with lower back pain. I read about the coconut oil and had some so I thought well I'll try it (I didn't expect it to work) I was so surprised my back pain was gone within minutes I mean no pain! this is wonderful lol. I just took about a small amount maybe teaspoon full in my hand and rubbed it on my back...now I'm a happy camper! Thanks for the tip. Penny in TN

I have had lower back pain for years and sciatica started a few months back when I fell. I have read numerous remedies. So I combined everyones suggestions and came up with these. Drink a mixture of cut ginger root (5-7 slices), turmeric and curry powder, (1/2 tsp)in a tall shaker container,(I steep in hot water for 5-10 min. then fill the rest w/cool water). Also have been doing the ACV, (3 tblspn) in water through out the day, (same container). Like OMG, what a difference. Also bought the Virgin Coconut Oil and put all over my body. My aches and even the "squeeking" of my knees when I kneel/bend are gone. I have always tried to go natural and have many books on herbs, etc. This website is AWSOME!! Oh, also the cold showers - WOW, what a difference. I always wondered when I swimming in the ocean and the water was about 65 my back never hurt - Eureka - now I know.

I had a car wreck and the MRI showed 2 discs bulging. I was informed to have surgery for this. I decided to go natural. AND IT WORKED! My prayers were answered. I began to take Tumeric in capsules about 8 or 10 at a time at my worst. It took my pain away. Every time I hurt I took more. Then the pain left. I did not want to be on a perscription because of the side effects. You can also put a teaspoon of tumeric in tomato juice for a great snappy tom kind of drink and fast relief.

I had another MRI a few years later and no disc bulge could be detected! Sometimes when under stress I feel some discomfort and I immediately take tumeric again and it is gone! I hope this helps someone.