What causes back pain in summer?

Low back pain is a common symptom in summer, especially when you often use air conditioning in air-conditioned rooms. At this time, you often catch a cold, which causes swelling and discomfort in the waist. This has a great impact on health. The reason why air conditioning can cause low back pain is mainly because the waist catches a cold, and then the blood vessels contract, leading to local ischemia and edema, which causes this phenomenon. At this time, you must use good methods to adjust your body, and the temperature of the air conditioner should not be set too low.

What causes back pain in summer?

1. Long-term use of air conditioning in summer can easily cause coldness in the waist and cause lower back pain

Everyone will experience lower back pain at some point in their life, and 80% of people have experienced severe lower back pain. Epidemiological surveys show that low back pain is very common among people aged 45-65, second only to heart disease and arthritis. In summer, long-term use of air conditioning can cause the waist to become cold, leading to vasoconstriction, ischemia, edema, etc., which can lead to lower back pain. Zhang Ping, chief physician of orthopedic surgery at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, pointed out that clinically, most lower back pain can be caused by diseases such as muscles, joints, and internal medicine.

People who use excessive force or improper posture when moving or lifting heavy objects may strain their waist muscles and cause lower back pain.

There are also some injured parts that are not in the muscles, but in the intervertebral facet joints. The patient suddenly feels as if the waist is "broken" during activities and cannot move freely. This is medically called lumbar facet joint disorder syndrome.

In addition, there are some patients with lumbar muscle strain, lumbar myofascial fibrositis, hypertrophic spondylitis and some sequelae of lumbar fractures. These patients will show chronic low back pain, which recurs frequently. After rest and treatment, the pain will be relieved or disappear, but once the weather changes, cold, damp or fatigue occurs, the low back pain will recur.

Zhang Ping also pointed out that some other internal medical diseases may cause lower back pain. For example, lumbar tuberculosis, primary spinal tumors, urinary tract stones, pelvic inflammatory disease, ankylosing arthritis, etc.

2. People who sit for a long time often experience lower back pain

People who often work in front of a computer or have a fixed posture should be careful

In clinical practice, it is found that few teenagers suffer from lower back pain. As you approach age 55, your chances of experiencing low back pain gradually increase. Before the age of 60, the risk of low back pain is similar for men and women. Subsequently, due to endocrine changes, the development of osteoporosis, degeneration of bones, joints, and ligaments, the incidence rate in women increased.

In addition, the incidence rate is higher in obese people and those with taller body shapes. Zhang Ping said that when people are overweight, their abdomen will bulge, and in order to maintain the balance of the body, the curvature of the lumbar spine must be strengthened. The lumbar spine is in a crooked and bad posture for a long time. In addition, most obese people lack exercise, which makes the gluteal muscles that pull the pelvis backwards relax, and the pelvis tilts forward. Therefore, the waist bears a heavy burden for a long time, causing lower back pain.

Of course, those who often work in front of a computer, fix a certain posture, or do long, heavy, and intense waist work. Such as auto mechanics, porters, athletes, etc., these people are prone to acute and chronic lumbar injuries, which will cause degeneration over time and lead to low back pain or low back and leg pain. Someone once measured the internal pressure of the lumbar intervertebral disc on a person weighing 70 kg and found that the internal pressure of the lumbar spine was different in different postures. The pressure inside the lumbar intervertebral disc is the lowest when lying on your back, and the pressure inside the lumbar intervertebral disc is the highest when carrying or lifting heavy objects. When sitting upright in this position, the pressure inside the lumbar intervertebral disc is not small. Therefore, many people who often sit in front of the computer or play cards for a long time also suffer from lower back pain.

Sit well and your lower back won't hurt

The chair you sit on should be of moderate height and preferably have a backrest. Tan Jianqun, head nurse of the Department of Orthopedics, pointed out that in general in clinical practice, in addition to standardized disease treatment, it is best to adopt some preventive health care measures to prevent lower back pain. Among them, maintaining a good and correct sitting posture is the most important. This is because bad posture will fatigue the back muscles and abdominal muscles that support the spine to maintain the balance of the whole body, reduce their function, and cause the accumulation of local metabolic product - lactic acid, which will cause low back pain.

In addition, sitting for a long time will cause the pelvis and sacroiliac joints to bear weight for a long time, and the waist lacks activity, so Qi and blood are easily stagnant in the waist and cause Qi stagnation and blood stasis, which affects the blood circulation in the lower limbs and causes numbness in the legs, leading to muscle atrophy over time. In this case, the muscles are stiff and any movement may cause a sprain or other injury, leading to low back pain. Therefore, you should stand up regularly to move your body, and the chair you sit on should be of moderate height and preferably have a backrest.

Secondly, when picking up objects from the ground, you should bend your knees and squat, and avoid bending over, so as to avoid excessive force on the lumbar spine when standing up. If you bend over for a long period of time, you should stand up and take a break from time to time to stretch your back and waist muscles before bending over to work again to prevent excessive fatigue of your back muscles.