Healing Back Pain makes a claim along those lines (p62):
One body of evidence that the physiologic alteration in TMS is oxygen deprivation is clinical. It has long been recognized that heat, introduced into muscle by diathermy or ultrasound machines, will relieve back pain temporarily. So will deep massage and active exercise of the muscles involved. All three of these physical measures are known to increase blood flow through muscle. Increased blood flow means more oxygen, and if that relieves pain it is logical to assume that oxygen deprivation was responsible for the pain.
Yeah, as a 1.5 week follow up, the heat treatement has continued to has continued to be effective, with the sense of tightness continuing to resolve. But it’s also required a fairly high dose: probably several hours a day sitting with the waterbottle shoved into my t-shirt. I have a more ergonomic chair arriving tomorrow, G-d and B-zzos willing.
4 month follow up: a lot of heat was very helpful, but underpowered to fully deal with this problem, and also inconvenient to constantly have a hotwater bottle in the back of my sweater like a hunchback of Notre Dame. Gently ramped up, progressive upper back strengthening has been very helpful for getting to a much more sustainably comfortable point. There’s still some lingering issues in the spot between the shoulder blades and occasionally I do still treat with heat, but it’s much much better now.
Healing Back Pain makes a claim along those lines (p62):
Yeah, as a 1.5 week follow up, the heat treatement has continued to has continued to be effective, with the sense of tightness continuing to resolve. But it’s also required a fairly high dose: probably several hours a day sitting with the waterbottle shoved into my t-shirt. I have a more ergonomic chair arriving tomorrow, G-d and B-zzos willing.
4 month follow up: a lot of heat was very helpful, but underpowered to fully deal with this problem, and also inconvenient to constantly have a hotwater bottle in the back of my sweater like a hunchback of Notre Dame. Gently ramped up, progressive upper back strengthening has been very helpful for getting to a much more sustainably comfortable point. There’s still some lingering issues in the spot between the shoulder blades and occasionally I do still treat with heat, but it’s much much better now.