Back pain is a very common experience that most people have to deal with at some point in their lives. Heating pads are often a common recommendation for back pain but the truth is that most people do not use these pads properly or even know why they work.
Heating pads reduce back pain by blocking pain signals sent to the brain. The brain can only pay attention to so many sensory signals at once and it has preferences over which stimuli get paid attention to. Although it may not seem like it, chronic pain signals are actually the sensory signals that your brain rates as least important. As a result, when you apply heat to the affected body area, only warmth is felt even though pain signals are still being sent towards the brain.
Your brain tunes out the pain and instead pays attention to the heat. As soon as the heat stops, the heat signals fade, causing your brain to shift its focus back to the pain signals, resulting in the rapid return of back pain.
This is the reason why you can experience instant relief from a heating pad only to have the pain come back shortly after the pain stops. Pain signals are effectively blocked when the heat therapy is applied. With that said, heat can be a convenient way to reduce back pain, but there are two main problems with heating pads that you should be aware of.
First off, it is not appropriate to use heating pads if there is inflammation present, as heat increases blood flow to the area where the heat is applied. Increasing blood flow to an inflamed area can increase swelling at the inflamed area, making the current pain even worse.
Furthermore, the other main downside to using heating pads as a primary method to relieve back pain is that as I described earlier, heating pads do not actually treat the root cause of your pain but rather just mask the pain. If you want long lasting pain relief, you will ultimately need to address the underlying cause of your pain.
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