How Long Does It Take For A Back Muscle Pain To Heal?

When you have a pulled muscle in your back, local Physio on the Gold Coast can assist in a speedy recovery.

When you have a pulled muscle in your back, local Physio on the Gold Coast can assist in a speedy recovery.

Pulled Back Muscle Symptoms

The soft tissues found in the lower back become damaged for a variety of reasons, some of the most common include:

  • Using poor form while lifting a heavy object resulting in twisting the spine
  • Placing too much pressure on the spine during a fall
  • Stressing the connective tissues in the spine through poor posture
  • Pivoting, twisting, or physical impact during sports or doing manual labour

A strain or sprain in your back can result in symptoms such as:

  • A dull, aching pain in areas of the lower back
  • Difficulty when standing, sitting and twisting
  • Stiffness in the lower back area
  • Muscle spasms
  • Pain that radiates down to the buttocks

A sprain happens when a ligament connecting a bone to another bone is torn or stretched. Strain’s happen if tendons or muscles fibers are torn or stretched. The treatments and recovery times are similar.

Recovery Time for a Pulled Back Muscle

This can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks or more to achieve a full recovery. The main factors in determining the recovery time are the treatment approaches and the injury severity

With a mild pulled muscle it may heal in a few days with rest, but many strained muscles can take about four to six weeks to properly heal. In severe cases, pulled muscle can take ten weeks or longer.

Your Physio on the Gold Coast can help to speed up your recovery time using a proactive treatment approach.

Pulled Back Muscle Treatment

Often you can treat a pulled back muscle at home by using RICE which stands for, “rest, ice, compression, elevation”. This is an old remedy that is usually successful, but takes time. Visiting your local Physio on the Gold Coast can help to accelerate your recovery, this is because they have the expertise and are able to use more advanced treatments such as active compression, cryotherapy and rapid contrast therapy.

Cryotherapy

This uses cold to help reduce the swelling and pain associated with a pulled muscle. This uses ice packs to reach a therapeutic temperature, but these only deliver the cold to a limited area and soon lose their cold temperature.

A cryotherapy system uses body-conforming wraps that contain integrated cold-circulating chambers. This delivers the therapeutic cold at a controlled and consistent temperature over specified areas so the cold temperature can reach more of your damaged tissues.

Active Compression

The active compression technique is where air is pneumatically pumped through integrated chambers inside body-conforming wraps that mimic the natural “squeeze and release” action of muscle contractions, helps to remove any excess fluid thereby reducing swelling.

Rapid Contrast Therapy

Heat therapy helps promote circulation, which brings freshly oxygenated blood and nutrients to the healing tissues, but using only heat can cause additional swelling.

Rapid contrast therapy where the rapid alternating hot and cold treatment provides the benefit of both therapy approaches without the risk of swelling that heat can cause.

Having your Physio on the Gold Coast treat your back pain will dramatically speed up your recovery time so you feel less pain and can get back to normal.

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