Prevent or help stop back pain by NOT smoking....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 3-26-2013

This post is about why avoiding tobacco smoke is a key to getting back pain far less often and to make back pain better if you have it now.

First:

1.  Other research has found that high chronic inflammation doesn’t just increase pain from osteoarthritis of all kinds, it CAUSES the damage itself too!

Breathing tobacco smoke -- whether self-administered or in second hand smoke -- causes immediate damage to the inner surfaces of your blood vessels and boosts and causes chronic excess inflammation.

2.  And, your body can’t repair areas of you well that receive no or too little blood flow. 

Every single exposure to tobacco smoke causes your body to add to the plaque in your blood vessels to try to patch this damage.  This happens to people even if they only smoke 3 cigarettes a day or are in their teens and NO SMOKER escapes!  It is certain and happens every time.

This means that the smaller blood vessels into your back and spine that might deliver repairs to your back and spine and remove damage may deliver none or too little to do the job!

Does that mean that smokers get back pain in the first place in part from smoking?

Yes.

But of more importance, it means if you have back pain you want to get rid of and not get it back, avoiding tobacco smoke is essential to get rid of the pain.

And continuing to avoid tobacco smoke is essential to not get back pain back or get it so often.

Does that mean if you have back pain you want to get rid of and now smoke, quitting is an essential part of getting rid of it.

Is this just theory?

Nope.

A recent Medical News Today email had this:

(Note the parts I put in bold!  These statements were not in bold in the article.  But you’ll see why they deserve to be!)

“Smoking Cessation Improves Pain In Spine Patients

http://mnt.to/a/4cr7

Smoking is a known risk factor for back pain and disc disease.

In a new study presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), researchers reviewed smoking cessation rates and related pain in 6,779 patients undergoing treatment for spinal disorders with severe axial (spine) or radicular (leg) pain.

Smoking Cessation Improves Pain In Spine Patients

  Article Date: 21 Mar 2013

Smoking is a known risk factor for back pain and disc disease.

In a new study presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), researchers reviewed smoking cessation rates and related pain in 6,779 patients undergoing treatment for spinal disorders with severe axial (spine) or radicular (leg) pain. Information on each patient's age, gender, weight, smoking history, assessment of pain, treatment type and co-morbid depression also were assessed.

Overall, 8.9 percent of patients over the age of 55 smoked compared with 23.9 percent of those aged 55 and younger. Twenty-five percent of the patients older than age 55 had quit smoking, as did 26.1 percent of those younger than age 55.

Current smokers in both age groups reported greater pain than those who had never smoked.

Mean improvement in reported pain over the course of treatment was significantly different in non-smokers and current smokers in both age groups.

Those who quit smoking during the course of care reported greater pain improvement than those who continued to smoke.

As a group, those who continued smoking during treatment had no clinically significant improvement in reported pain, regardless of age.”

Now for the better news.

These same effects of smoking do cause up to 30% of all cancers and all smokers have heart disease.

The good news is that the food and drink changes that help people stopping smoking recover from that damage and avoid cancer and heart attacks ALSO make quitting easier and more likely!

The initially moderate exercise that helps people stopping smoking recover from that damage and avoid cancer and heart attacks ALSO makes quitting easier and more likely!

So if you stop soft drinks and packaged snacks and desserts and eat more health OK proteins and fruit and vegetables, you not only get the health protection, your shot at quitting smoking goes WAY up too. 

Similarly, if you begin even a regular walking program of 10 minutes a day or visiting the gym to strength train for half an hour twice a week, you not only get the health protection, your shot at quitting smoking goes WAY up too.

And, there’s more!

If you avoid all corn and soy and canola oil and use extra virgin olive oil and avoid animal fats from animals fed grain, and use only extra virgin olive oil plus take omega 3 supplements and eat wild caught fish once or twice a week, you’ll remove the inflammation causing omega 6 oils most people eat and get the inflammation reducing omega 3 oils.

And THAT means that your back will hurt less and be less likely to hurt you again later.

The bonus is that eating right in this way and the regular exercise will just about stop the weight gain most people get when they stop smoking.

And avoiding that extra weight will help your back get better too.

Here’s some more good news!

With knowledgeable support, your chances of quitting smoking go up even more.

Just today I found out that support not only exists and works with the Mayo Clinic, it’s free too!

This was in an article today on Yahoo.  So I’m very thankful to them for showing it!

“Cheryl Healton, DrPH, president and CEO of Legacy (the nonprofit behind the tobacco prevention counter-marketing campaign, truth), says that since tobacco companies can no longer legally target teenagers-they've circled the wagons around the over-18 crowd (which includes marketing at bars and in college towns).

Healton says the best advice she can give to those trying to quit is that if you experience a relapse, keep trying to quit until you do. "Practice makes perfect. Basically, you are practicing quitting and eventually you will," she explains. "The biggest myth out there is the story of old Uncle Tom who threw his cigarettes out of the pick-up truck and never smoked again.

 While that does in fact happen, that is probably not the first time he tried to quit. Smokers [who desire to quit] may have [attempted] to quit up to 11 times."

She also advises checking out  BecomeAnEX.org  - Legacy's free online support resource in partnership with Mayo Clinic. "I highly recommend it-

close to 3 million people have been to BecomeAnEX.org and the site has more than 600,000 registered users."

"There is nothing to be ashamed of," says Healton, who is a former smoker herself. "Smoking is no different that any other substance abuse issue-and the big thing we need to do is destigmatize it so people are not off in corners getting ill and staying ill."”

See:  http://www.becomeanex.org/

"The EX Plan

The EX Plan is a free quit smoking program, one that can show you a whole new way to think about quitting. It’s based on personal experiences from ex-smokers as well as the latest scientific research from the experts at Mayo Clinic.

The EX Plan helps you see quitting not as one big war, but as a number of little battles you can actually win."