Lower Back Safety 101: How to Avoid Ever Needing North Carolina Workers’ Compensation
Whether you’ve been on and off North Carolina workers’ compensation for a bad back or other occupational injury for years; or you are concerned about chronic nagging aches and pains, you want solid and tested advice about how to take better care of your back.
When most people think about back injuries, they envision things like falling off a crane at a construction site, slipping and falling on a patch of dry ice in the office parking lot, screwing up one’s lower back while trying to pick up a heavy box, or getting whiplash in an auto accident.
While all these situations can result in back injuries, chronic abuse of muscles and poor posture can also cause/exacerbate back problems. For instance, if you work a desk job, and you don’t employ proper ergonomic techniques and tools, over time, your posture can degrade, making you more vulnerable to muscular weakness, atrophy, and damage to soft tissue. This can actually weaken your structure to the point that a back injury may be almost inevitable.
Furthermore, your diet can influence your potential to get hurt (or to recover from) a back injury. If you consume lot of heavily processed foods and sugars, you can weaken your immune system and degrade your body’s natural resilience to things like stress.
Obviously, this blog cannot provide medical advice, but if you or someone else that you love has been dealing with a North Carolina workers’ compensation claim for your back, you might want to explore modalities with your physical therapist and physician to strengthen your body and eliminate the factors in your life and workplace that may be causing or exacerbating back problems. For instance, cutting out refined sugars and starches can help the body’s immune system. Engaging in regular strength training overseen by a therapist can be useful for many people, even for workers in “non-active jobs,” such as data entry or marketing. De-stressing can also be a crucial resource, as can taking regular breaks from repetitive activity.
Other more “exotic” forms of back strain relief include the Alexander Technique, Sarno body awareness, and Feldenkrais movement. For certain individuals who have been severely or chronically injured, traditional therapies, like surgery, may be needed. Other modalities that some have found useful to treat back pain include massage, acupressure, acupuncture, and training in meditation/mindfulness.
On a more general note… many injured workers develop a mentality of helplessness. Since they’ve been hurt, and they have suffered financially, they feel a loss of control over their lives. Fortunately, this loss of control is often imaginary. Even if you have sustained serious problems, you can take advantage of good modalities to speed up healing and prevent re-injury.
All that said, from a practical “nuts and bolts” point of view, you still likely have many questions about how to collect benefits owed to you, how to navigate the workers’ comp system, how to deal with bad faith insurers, and how to manage less than cooperative employers. For help now, turn to a capable and experienced North Carolina workers’ compensation law firm.
More Web Resources
WebMD article on causes of back pain
Listserve for people with repetitive stress and pain problems
