Older Bolder Life

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back pain

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Older Bolder Links, Reads, Podcasts, Recipes, and More 5 August 2020

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Top of the Fold This Week: Carnivore, Walking, Sex, and Dementia

Guide to high protein diets from carnivore Dr. Kevin Stock.

High level athletes who’ve gone carnivore.

14 ways to up your walking workout.

Speaking of walking, nice piece on walking through the pandemic.

Sex positions for sore backs.

Potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia.

Were early humans living in Mexico during the Ice Age?

Podcast of the Week 5 August 2020: Put Your Jumping Shoes On

Brad Kearns interviews jumping guru Nathanael Morton about ballistic jumping workouts and preserving through extreme challenges.

The Obligatory COVID-19 Links for the Week

Interesting Read: The Forrest Gump approach to COVID-19 management (hint – exercise).

Over a third of healthy, unexposed donors had active T-Cell immunity against COVID-19.

Another look at how low vitamin D levels up the risk for COVID-19 issues.

Solid argument that aerosols play a small role in COVID-19. Impressive.

Epidemiology of COVID-19 and school closures/exposures.

Food, Glorious Food

A call to strengthen national nutrition research.

Is one-off binge eating perhaps not so bad?

52 avocado recipes that aren’t guacamole.

Green Chile Enchilada Bake for a crowd.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Older Bolder Links, Reads, Recipes and More 28 September 2019

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Top of the fold / the read of the week: Digging deeper on ketogenic diets and skeletal muscle hypertrophy.

Speaking of muscle mass, metformin blunts muscle hypertrophy in response to training?

Very well done look at hyperinsulinemia and related metabolic consequences.

Another brutal takedown of the documentary Game Changers.

A lay look at the “secrets of long-lived Greeks”.

An oft-overlooked ab workout that’s often incredibly helpful in back pain – the Dead Bug.

How’s that working out for you, Cam? Vegan diets in the NFL…

Bootleg vapes tainted with hydrogen cyanide. More biting analysis from Karl Denninger.

Video: A nutritional ketosis guru takes on the relationship between gout and metabolic syndrome.

Food, Glorious Food

A nifty foodie perspective: In Praise of Bones and Fat.

Tuck this one away for future reference: Extremists lawmakers are floating the idea of making the consumption of meat a criminal act.

Instant-Pot Korean Beer Braised Brisket
Radish, Tomato, and Cucumber Cottage Cheese Salad
Simple Cilantro Chutney

Question of the Week: What is Mechanical Low Back Pain?

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From a client this week –

…my husband finally went to see our internist about a nagging low back pain that just won’t go away. He’s 80 pounds or more overweight, sedentary, and thinks Ibuprofen is something we all just have to take constantly to get by. His doctor’s PA told him he had “mechanical low back pain” and that it would just go away with time, what does that mean?…

A Quick Primer on What “Mechanical Low Back” Pain Means

Before a quick overview of what the term mechanical low back pain might refer to, of course I have to remind you that I’m not providing medical advice here, simply reviewing key concepts related to the question above.

In the arena of spinal pain and symptoms, one way to describe discomfort (or symptoms) is to divide them into one of two types (though they can both occur at the same time) – mechanical symptoms versus what are described as radicular symptoms (you might hear the term radiculopathy used).

Radicular symptoms refer to those symptoms generated when a nerve is irritated, and usually occur somewhere along the specific nerve’s course through the body and limbs. Think of a herniated disc “pinching” a nerve; let’s use as an example a far lateral disc herniation at L5S1 (the lowermost disc in the entire spinal column between the 5th lumbar vertebra (backbone) and the sacrum, pushing on the exiting L5 nerve root at that level. There may be some back pain produced in this scenario, but symptoms (could be pain, numbness, tingling, weakness) would potentially show up in the hamstring region, the front of the lower leg, and maybe even the top of the foot (all areas involved with the L5 nerve root).

Mechanical pain, on the other hand, typical represents symptoms produced by irritation or dysfunction of any other structure that’s NOT nerve tissue.

The most likely suspects are muscle, ligament, bone, joint, and the discs themselves (they’re a type of joint actually between the backbones (vertebrae) – a jelly like center (the nucleus pulpous) surrounded by a very interesting, multilayered harder (and specialized) cartilage-like casing. Most spine gurus agree that at least the outer third of the disc shell is supplied by nerve tissue and can generate pain; for a time it was thought discs didn’t have a direct nerve supply.

By far and away the lion’s share of mechanical low back pain is generated by muscles and ligaments, though as we charge through life we all accumulate some “wear and tear” changes in these spinal structures, that can (at least now and again) get inflamed, generate pain, and limit our function.

The good news here is that almost all of us will have a spell of mechanical low back pain at some point in our lives, and the overwhelming majority of the time, symptoms go away pretty damned quickly, and without much attention or intervention. Consider those episodes a proverbial “shot across your bow” imploring you to optimize your health, nutrition, and fitness if you’re not living that way now.

On the other hand, mechanical low back (or other spinal) pain that won’t respond to rest or a brief period of decreased activity, perhaps a very short course of anti-inflammatories, and maybe simple local measures (icing/heat) – and that continues to impact daily function – probably needs to be looked into with more than a pat on the head and encouragement that “it’ll get better in a few days”.

We’ll be digging into the topic of spinal pain more deeply through the fall…