
Originally Posted by
TrailRunAZ
Huge fan of PT for low back pain, IF you have a good therapist and he/she works directly with you. Therapy for acute flare should be limited with a lot of instruction on home exercises/stretches after they use some modalities to calm it down. If the therapists in your area can do dry needling I highly recommend it. It is nothing short of miraculous in some cases, and couple with some IFC (like a TENS only deeper) you can be rehabbed in no time.
Core work will be paramount to keep low back/posterior chain balanced.
My low back looks like a train wreck on xray and worse than a lot of people on chronic pain meds, but I am pain free most of the time for the above reasons (well, hedge on core to be honest, but only because I hate it and my flares are rare now).
Don’t do any lifts that are compressive (squats, some shoulder press machines, etc.) until you are 100% pain free.