Can carrying extra weight make my joint and back pain worse?
Yes, patients who are overweight and dealing with back and joint pain place extra strain on their body’s joints, increasing their pain levels. Since pain can make it difficult to stay active and thus difficult to lose weight, managing your pain levels so that you can stay active is a crucial part of a back and joint pain treatment plan.
How Does Excess Weight Worsen Joint Pain?
Your joints are under constant stress throughout the day as they support your body’s weight while you stand, walk, or go up flights of stairs. While it might not seem believable at first, even being slightly overweight can place a much larger amount of pressure on your joints than someone who is at a healthier weight has on their joints. Some studies have shown that for every pound a patient is overweight, an additional four pounds of force is applied to their knee joints when walking or running. This added force can cause patients to develop knee pain and aggravate pre-existing knee pain, making treatment more complicated.
How Does Excess Weight Contribute to Back Pain?
Just like with joint pain, excess weight can contribute significantly to back pain. Being overweight can contribute to and cause back pain by:
- Increasing pressure on spinal disks
- Contributing to changes in posture
- Placing greater strain on the back’s muscles
- Increasing inflammation in the back
If you’re living with a pre-existing back pain-causing condition like degenerative disc disease or spinal stenosis, being overweight can aggravate these back pain-causing conditions further.
Chronic Pain Exercise and Healthy Weight Loss
When we look at chronic pain, exercise, and healthy weight loss, we can clearly see that all three of these are deeply connected. When a patient is dealing with chronic pain, especially chronic pain that makes it more difficult to exercise and stay active, they become at a higher risk of gaining excess weight. Once a patient does gain excess weight, they often find it more difficult to lose the weight as their pain has further increased alongside their weight gain. Breaking out of this cycle is crucial to improve both your pain management and your overall health, and with some help from pain management specialists, it can be done.
How Can Pain Management Help You Become More Active?
Pain management treatments work to help treat your pain levels, which also often lead to increases in mobility, allowing you to exercise to lose excess weight, which in turn leads to even more pain relief. This can be easier said than done, as getting a patient’s pain levels to a level that allows them to exercise takes time and professional, specialized treatments. Patients should also consult their doctor before beginning any new exercise routine to ensure it is safe for their health and any underlying medical conditions. If you’re ready to take the first steps towards pain relief and losing excess weight, Specialty Pain Management’s team is here to help!
Work Towards a Healthier Weight and Less Pain With Specialty Pain Management
If you’re dealing with chronic pain that is made worse by carrying excess weight, coming under professional specialized care can make a big difference. Specialty Pain Management works alongside our patients to help them reach their pain management and weight-loss goals, ensuring they achieve the highest level of pain relief possible. To get started, contact our team today to set up your first appointment!