Hard Science: Low Back Pain and Sex

Not Tonight, Dear. My Back Hurts
Adults who suffer with serious low back pain often abstain from sexual intimacy because they fear it will trigger a painful episode and set them back months. New groundbreaking research out of the University of Waterloo offers science-backed best-sex-position suggestions that will have you embracing your partner without this fear.

Researchers have shared their findings on how the spine moves during sex and why certain positions are better than others for avoiding pain.

Until now, the standard recommendation to patients with low back pain has been to “spoon”. But the research has discovered that spooning is not a one-position-fits-all solution, and can actually aggravate pain in many patients. Natalie Sidorkewicz, a PhD candidate and lead author of the research paper, explains that this general recommendation “failed to … recognize that there are all sorts of triggers for back pain…. There are sex positions that someone with one type of back pain may find comfortable, but that very same position may increase the back pain of another individual with different pain triggers.”

The Research
For the study, believed to be the first biomechanical study of its kind, researchers recruited 10 heterosexual couples, with an average age of about 30, to have intercourse in a controlled laboratory setting. Each participant was fitted with remote sensors that tracked how their spines moved when they engaged in five common sex positions. Motion capture systems showed how the men’s and women’s spines flexed when they assumed each position.

As a result, says Sidorkewicz, “We were able to actually determine what angle the spine is at, at each moment in time that they’re having sex.” The study also captured activity in the participants’ core and hip muscles.

Stuart McGill, senior author and a professor in Waterloo’s Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, says the study allowed researches to document load on soft tissue, muscle activity levels, and how the stress migrates through the body based on position for sex. “Until now, doctors have never had any hard science to base their recommendations upon.”

“We are now providing [scientific data] to help guide clinicians to make better recommendations to patients.”

The Findings
Doctors’ current recommendations have usually been based on conjecture, clinical experience or information available through popular media. Now researchers have created guidelines that recommend different sex positions and motions based on which movements trigger a patient’s pain. Back pain doctors can now make science-based recommendations to their patients and be more confident in discussing this sensitive topic. Interestingly, findings and initial recommendations contradict the most frequently advised position, side-lying (spooning).

For example: For men who are diagnosed as flexion-intolerant, meaning those whose back pain is worsened when they touch their toes or sit for long periods of time, spooning or missionary were found to be least spine-conserving. For these men, rear-entry position is most spine-sparing of the positions studied.

Also, it is suggested that these men use a hip-hinging motion rather than thrust with their spines. For men who are diagnosed as extension-intolerant, meaning they experience pain when arching their backs, the advice is to use the missionary position or spooning position.

Low Back Pain: Fear Not
Sexual relationships among adults () are recognized as an integral measure of health and disability according to the World Health Organization. And according to recent surveys, up to 84 percent of men and 73 percent of women who suffer with low back pain report a significant decrease in the frequency of intimacy. Part of the reason is psychological: fear of pain. Part is physical: a significant number of people with chronic low back pain reported that intimacy causes additional pain.

This new research out of the University of Waterloo suggests having debilitating low back pain does not mean one’s love-life need be shelved. New recommendations open the door to an improved quality of love-life for many couples.

Low back pain caused by bulging or herniated disc, sciatica, spinal stenosis, or spinal arthritis may be helped with innovative non-invasive treatment at Back Clinics of Canada. Dr. Nusbaum’s unique protocol – the High Performance Healing SystemTM – is seeing many low back pain patients achieve true lasting healing and freedom from pain.

RESEARCH: http://journals.lww.com/spinejournal/Fulltext/2014/09150/Male_Spine_Motion_During_Coitus__Implications_for.5.aspx