Water Intake for Back Pain
Low back pain is a very common complaint in all countries and almost all areas of the population that can be very painful and debilitating. A global disease burden study in 2010 determined that, out of 291 conditions studied, low back pain ranked highest in terms of years lived with disability and sixth in terms of disability adjusted life years. Put simply, low back pain forces people to adjust their lives and ultimately reduces total life lived in terms of life expectancy and lost years due to pain and disability. Luckily there are some really simple things that we can use that might just reduce the pain associated with low back injury. One of the simplest, inexpensive and commonly forgotten medicaments we can adopt is regular water intake in the mornings and through the day.
One article in the Journal of Traditional Medicine & Clinical Naturopathy provides some insight and describes the experiences of a physician who suffered from low back pain. He suggested that increasing his water intake had a “remarkable effect” on his low back pain and that it surprised him at the time. The particular physician referred to his water intake as water therapy, I call it drinking adequate water.
The same Physician explained that he had been using analgesic medication since his undergraduate to control the pain in his lower back and simply by increasing his water intake (as well as continuing his regular stretching and strengthening exercises) he was able to stop analgesics altogether. These results are incredible and we must always remember that individual results are always different. Side note, if you have a doctor prescribed medication always seek the advice of the treating doctor before ceasing any medication.
When we have a close look at the potential mechanisms for the effect of water intake on low back pain it is difficult to determine due to the lack of clinical research. What we can do is have a look at the effect of dehydration on low back pain, which has a little more research. The two most likely culprits for low back pain due to dehydration are muscle spasm and nervous system impairment.
Another potential mechanism for reduced low back pain when drinking water is the maintenance of hydration of the nucleus of the intervertebral disc and maintenance of disc height. While the research is limited, many non-scientific sources, including orthopedic websites and various other media, maintain the adequate water intake has a positive effect on low back pain due to the maintenance of intervertebral disc health and enabling greater movement of the intervertebral joint as well as increased facet joint space.
One thing to note and be wary of is the total amount of water you drink per day. Just because maintaining hydration may reduce back pain it doesn’t mean drinking more water than the body requires will necessarily have an even better result. Over drinking will likely result in the need to race to the bathroom more often. The simple guide would be to have roughly about 400ml as soon as you wake in the morning, have a good breakfast, avoid caffeinated drinks for the first few hours after waking and drink unadulterated water regularly throughout the day in small amounts so that you are not allowing your body to become dehydrated.
