Travel Tips for your Back

Don't let back pain slow you down for the Holidays. We will provide travel tips for your back throughout the holiday season to keep you free from back injury. Prevention is the key here. Take a look at some Chiropractor Recommendations to save your back.

When you book your flight, think about the type of schedule that will be the least stressful.

• Strategically schedule your flight.
  • Consider taking a flight when there will be fewer people on board and more room for you to lie down across seats.
  • Contact the airline prior to scheduling a flight and let them know of your back pain. They may be able to provide you with more insight on when flights tend to be very crowded and much lighter.
  • Try to limit the down time between in-flight connections or layovers, if applicable.
  • Don't schedule a flight that will require you to wake up extremely early.

Now that you’ve done some work prior to your flight, here’s what you can do to curtail back pain during your journey.

For lower back pain, providing support behind your lower back, often with a back roll or even a couple of pillows (which a flight attendant should be more than willing to give you), is a good way to prevent slouching that may lead to back pain and to keep your spine straight.

• Provide support to your back during the flight.
• Back braces, tube-shaped pillows with microfibers inside, and other materials providing support are common companions of passengers with back pain and can be purchased inexpensively at many stores.

Staying stationary for prolonged periods of time stresses the spine and can make back pain much worse

• Move around during the flight

See if there is room at the back of plane to do some quick stretching, which can provide more flexibility to the back and ease stiffness. Just be sure not to get up during turbulence.

Alternate every 15 minutes between heat therapy, which can stretch the tissues around the spine and reduce the sending of pain signals, and ice treatment, which can numb back swelling. Here’s what you can do:

Stock up on inexpensive heating options like ThermaCare heat wraps or warm gel packs and apply them while in the air.

Safe Travels, until next time! :)