An Electropedic Bed can do more for your back than any other bed.
If you read "Bad-Back" Books, you will constantly see pictures and recommendations to elevate your legs, and bend your knees.
As you elevate your legs on an Electropedic Bed, you will feel your lower back flatten.
You simply stop where you are most comfortable.
Pain comes from the nerves. Sometimes it is your bones and muscles pressing on your nerves.
When you can manipulate and realign your lower back bones, you can sometimes take the pressure that your bones and muscles may be putting on your nerves.
You can also promote a healthy back.
Your back and spine starts at your tail bone (where your legs come together) and ends within your neck.
The trick is to get your whole back flat.
You can only do this by elevating your legs and bending your knees.
Doctor's and Bad-Back Books want you to bend your knees, or put your legs up on a chair, or rest with your back flat and your legs up against the wall.
When you are on your Electropedic Bed, as you elevate your legs, your lower back flattens. When your back is sore, you can sleep and rest in these positions with your legs up and your back flat. No other bed can do this.
If you can keep the nerves in your spine freely working without pressure from muscles and bones, your back pain can also be eliminated. Many Bad-Back books say where ever your pain is, whether it is in your shoulder or your leg, etc. it is because your spinal nerves are being pinched. Lying with your back completely flat allows for that free-flow in your spinal nervouse system.
Every time you elevate your legs, whether your are resting or sleeping, you are promoting good spinal health. You can wake up feeling great. You can help fix a sore back by consciously resting in these positions. Bad-Back books recommend that you elevate your legs/bend your knees to keep your back flat for about 20 minutes a day. When you have an Electropedic Bed you can do it for 20 minutes or all night long. Wake up feeling great.
The higher your back, the less pressure put on your upper back, neck and shoulders. If you have upper back pain, you simply find your most comfortable position. Every inch higher on your back is a different weight and pressure on your upper back, neck and shoulders.
Adjustable Beds are not hospital beds, but the reason they put a hospital bed in every single hospital, is because whether you have upper, middle or lower back pain; neck, shoulder, hip or leg pain, when you can contour your body, your whole body weight gets evenly supported and when you get the control in your hand, you can help relieve the strain and stress off the area of your body that you wish.
A normal mattress decision for someone who has Back Problems is usually how to buy a mattress that lets your spine rest in the proper posture and alignment. The Bad-Back Books say you should be sleeping almost in a position of "Standing at Attention" but laying flat. You do not want your hips to sink too far into the mattress. For people who have low back trouble we usually do not recommend the Tempurpedic, because this mattress allows your hips to sink in a little too far. BUT, with an adjustable bed when you contour your body, your hips NO LONGER sink into the mattress. We usually recommend our Latex Foam Mattress because Latex always tries to get back to its original shape - and does not allow your hips to "bottom out" and sink too far into the mattress.
For people with lower back trouble, we usually recommend to keep the mattress a little firmer, usually extra firm. When your hips sink too far into the mattress this puts a lot of strain on your lower back curve; leading to back pain.
Both Latex Foam and Tempurpedic bend perfectly in the lower back area so you do not feel a mattress bulge in the lower back area when you elevate the back Although we have spent a lot of technology reducing the "bulge", the Coil Spring Mattresses still bulges a little in the lower back area.
Important: If you buy an adjustable bed it is very important to get on the bed correctly. An adjustable bed bends where your body bends. Just like it is important not to slouch on a chair, it is important not to slouch on an adjustable bed. Make sure your whole back is on the back portion of the bed. A good reminder is to start with the top of your head lined up with the very end of the mattress. This way, as you elevate your legs, your whole back from your tail bone to your neck vertebrae can lay flat against the mattress. Also, this is why the extra length on an adjustable bed is important, especially for people who have a long torso, or need the extra room for their toes if they tuck in their bed sheets. The bending in the middle is the same for all 74", 80" and 84" length beds - we just evenly add a couple inches to the front and back. The extra inches in the back can be important to supporting your whole back area.
An Electropedic Bed can do five things for your back that no other bed can do:
Lower Back.
A position that is recommended as actual therapy for your back is with your
legs elevated, knees bent and your back completely flat. This position creates
a pelvic tilt, puts reverse pressure on your lower back and helps build the
strength of your lower back muscles. By elevating your legs and bending your
knees you can actually feel your lower back moving. You can realign the weights
and pressures on your vertabrae that may in turn be pressing on your delicate
nerves, finding more comfortable and less stressful positions.
Fetal Position.
With an Electropedic Bed you can elevate your back
and you legs into a fetal position with your knees bent and your upper body
gently curled into them. This position releases your lower back onto the
mattress, forcing you to relax and ease you everyday tension.
Upper Back.
The higher you back, the less pressure put on your upper back, neck and
shoulders
Relieve The Strain.
Every time you elevate your back or your legs, you are gently realigning
your vertebrae and changing the pressures they exert on your delicate nerves
that can cause pain. Sometimes just an inch in either direction can "relieve
the strain the created the pain."
Stretch-Back Exercise.
As we get older, our vertebrae gets closer and closer together. As we stand
and walk, out vertebrae are forced still closer. If you have chronic back
pain, the stretch-back exercise works like a traction. Start flat, and together
elevate your back and your legs all the way up, and then all the way down.
You'll feel a complete stretch along your entire back. You'll feel a gentle
pull between each vertebra. Feels great!
Although Adjustable Beds are not hospital beds, both electrically adjust your back and your legs to almost any position you desire. The reason you will find hospital beds in hospitals and recommended by Doctors is because if you have a Skeletal Problem, you can manipulate your positions to relieve the strain that creates the pain:
This is a list of skeletal disorders, these affect the development and structure of the skeletal system.
Low back pain
An acute lower back injury may be caused by a traumatic event, like a car accident or a fall. It occurs suddenly and its victims will usually be able to pinpoint exactly when it happened. In acute cases, the structures damaged will more than likely be soft tissue like muscles, ligaments and tendons. With a serious accident or due to osteoporosis or other causes of weakened vertebral bones, vertebral fractures in the lumbar spine may also occur. At the lowest end of the spine, some patients may have tailbone pain (also called coccyx pain or coccydynia). Others may have pain from their sacroiliac joint at the bottom of the lumbar spine, called sacroiliac joint dysfunction.
Chronic lower back pain usually has a more insidious onset, occurring over a long period of time. Physical causes may include osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, degeneration of the discs between the vertebrae, or a spinal disc herniation, a vertebral fracture (such as from osteoporosis), or rarely, a tumor (including cancer) or infection. The cause may also be psychological or emotional, and can be diagnosed as TMS or tension myositis syndrome or due to other non-anatomical factors.
Possible causes of low back pain:
Vertebral column
In human anatomy, the vertebral column (backbone or spine) is a column of vertebrae, the sacrum, invertebral discs, and the coccyx situated in the dorsal aspect of the torso, separated by spinal discs. It houses the spinal cord in its spinal canal.
Curves
Viewed laterally the vertebral column presents several curves, which correspond
to the different regions of the column, and are called
cervical,
thoracic,
lumbar, and
pelvic.
The cervical curve, convex forward, begins at the apex of the odontoid
(tooth-like) process, and ends at the middle of the second thoracic
vertebra; it is the least marked of all the curves.
The thoracic curve, concave forward, begins at the middle of the second and
ends at the middle of the twelfth thoracic vertebra. Its most prominent point
behind corresponds to the spinous process of the seventh thoracic vertebra.
This curve is known as a kyphotic curve.
The lumbar curve is more marked in the female than in the male; it begins
at the middle of the last thoracic vertebra, and ends at the sacrovertebral
angle. It is convex anteriorly, the convexity of the lower three vertebrae
being much greater than that of the upper two. This curve is described as
a lordotic curve.
The pelvic curve begins at the sacrovertebral articulation, and ends at the
point of the coccyx; its concavity is directed downward and forward.
The thoracic and pelvic curves are termed primary curves, because
they alone are present during fetal life. In the early embryo, the vertebral
column is C-shaped, and the cervical and lumbar curvatures are not yet present
in a newborn infant. The cervical and lumbar curves are compensatory
or secondary, and are developed after birth, the former when the child
is able to hold up its head (at three or four months) and to sit upright
(at nine months), the latter at twelve or eighteen months, when the child
begins to walk.
The thoracic portion of the vertebral column also has a slight lateral curvature, the convexity of which is directed toward the right side. This may be produced by muscular action, most persons using the right arm in preference to the left, especially in making long-continued efforts, when the body is curved to the right side. In support of this explanation it has been found that in one or two individuals who were left-handed, the convexity was to the left side. This curvature is regarded by others as being produced by the aortic arch and upper part of the descending thoracic aorta â a view which is supported by the fact that in cases of situs inversus where the viscera are transposed and the aorta is on the right side, the convexity of the curve is directed to the left side.
Individual vertebrae named according to region and position, from superior to inferior
Cervical â 7 vertebrae (C1-C7) Image:
Thoracic 12 vertebrae (T1-T12)
Lumbar 5 vertebrae (L1-L5)
Sacral 5 (fused) vertebrae (S1-S5)
Coccygeal 4 (fused) vertebrae (Co1-Co4)
Abnormalities
Occasionally the coalescence of the laminae is not completed, and consequently a cleft is left in the arches of the vertebrae, through which a protrusion of the spinal membranes (dura mater and arachnoid), and generally of the spinal cord (medulla spinalis) itself, takes place, constituting the malformation known as spina bifida. This condition is most common in the lumbosacral region, but it may occur in the thoracic or cervical region, or the arches throughout the whole length of the canal may remain incomplete.
The following abnormal curvatures may occur in some people:
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Pictures, information and references, thanks to Wikipedia.org