Tradies: Common complaints

Symptoms like back and neck pain are usually the signs that something is wrong. Sometimes they develop slowly from lifting cement bags all morning or being bent over a hammer all afternoon, day after day after day. Sometimes they come all of a sudden, while carrying plasterboard up steps or unloading some heavy trusses. The following symptoms are often experienced by tradies:

Back pain and stiffness: 

This presentation is very common in the trades and mostly associated with heavy or repetitive lifting, but not limited from the other three stressors outlined below.  Understanding the exact area of the pain and the stressor is very important for proper management. These findings along with other tests and potentially x-rays, will guide your chiropractor in regards to the adjustments, stretches, exercises and/or ergonomic advice best suited in your case. 

Neck pain: 

Pain in the neck usually occurs with positional stress, when working prolonged periods either above- or below the neutral position. The worse the body position the worse the stress on the spinal column. Another consideration is the upper back and shoulders as there are muscle, ligaments and tendons that run to and from the neck. Using your arms to do jobs above your shoulders commonly affects your neck.

Headaches: 

There is a list of potential causes when it comes to headaches. Some are associated with the spine and it’s muscles, ligaments and tendons. Unilateral-, repetitive-, acute- and positional stressors can all cause headaches. Stress and pressure in the neck, may lead to headaches if the spine is involved and is referred to as cervicogenic headaches. Most patients who try to assess the potential link with this type of pain and their spines, usually only consider chiropractic after suffering for months or trying other interventions. And let’s just say, we don’t get people saying they wish they had tried chiropractic later. Wink-wink.

Sciatica/ referred pain: 

In some cases pain can be deceiving, as the location of the pain might not coincide with the location of the problem. A good example is sciatica that causes radiating pain down the leg(s) which could be due to strain at the level of a gluteal muscle(s), the lumbar facet joint(s), the SI joint(s), the lumbar disc(s). Again, it can’t be stressed enough how important it is to see a professional to work out where the issue is coming from. You can rub an achy leg until it falls off, but if you don’t treat and manage the cause, it won’t resolve. Another example of referred pain is pain in the ribs due to a thoracic disc bulge. 

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